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NEW  FORCES  IN  OLD  CHINA 


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WITH     MAPS    AND    23     ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE  J^EW  E'RA  IJf 
THE   THILITTIJHES 

"By  ARTHUR  JUDSON  BILOWN.  D.D. 

'^ec^et3ry  of  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  the  U.  S.  A. 

Endorsed  by  John  R..  Mott 

"  I  have  recently  read  and  re-read  '  The  New  Era  in  the 
Philippines,*  by  Dr.  Brown.  I  have  found  it  not  only  instruct- 
ive but  most  interesting  and  inspiring.  I  regard  it  as  the  best 
book  on  a  mission  field  which  has  thus  far  appeared.  It  is  also 
most  timely.  It  really  ought  to  be  read  by  every  pastor  and 
Christian  layman — in  fact  by  all  our  citizens  who  have  al.  heart 
the  real  welfare  of  our  new  possessions." 

Poirvted  a^nd  Well  Writterx— The  Observer 

"The  book  is  designed  to  give  the  precise  information  regarding 
the  Philippines  vvhicli  the  general  reader,  and  particularly  the 
Christian  student,  desires.  ...  A  volume  of  surpassing 
interest  and  vv-orth.  ,  .  .  The  style  is  clear,  strong,  with 
much  pleasing  humor,  and  evidently  meant  to  get  at  the  bottom  of 
every  problem  considered.    .      .      .   The  book  is  very  satisfying. " 

The  Christian   Advocate  Notes  Its  Breadth 
and  Accuracy 

"  We  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  it  is  a  superior  book,   from  the 

point  of  view  of  accurate  statement,  comprehensive  knowledge, 

ability    to  mass  facts,  manifest    fairness  of  attitude    toward   the 

numerous   important  and  vital  issues  before  the  people  and  the 

American   government,  breadth  and  saneness  of  vision  as  to  the 

future  possibilities  of  the  people.      .      .      .      It  is  a  compendium 

of  valuable  and  accurate  information,  and  an  able  and  dispassionate 

discussion  of  a  number  of  the  most  serious  questions  evolved  by 

American  occupation  of  the  islands. ' ' 

The  Outlook's  Commervdation 

"  This  is  the  best  account  of  religious  conditions  in  the  Philippines 
that  we  have  seen.  It  is  the  result  of  a  personal  visit  to  the 
archipelago  and  a  study  of  its  institutions.  .  .  .  Essential  to 
ministers  and  others  who  would  acquaint  themselves  with  the 
religious  conditions  in  the  Philippines,  and  of  value  to  all  students 
uf  the  V  rious  aspects   of  the    Filipino    problem." 


New  Forces  in  Old  China 

An    Unwelcome    But 
Inevitable    Awakening 


By 
ARTHUR  JUDSON  BROWN 

Author  of 
"The  New  Era  in  the  Philippines" 


New  York  Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

London    and    Edinburgh 


Copyright,    1904,   by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  6}  Washington  Street 
Toronto:  27  Richmond  Street,  W 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:    50    St.    Mary   Street 


72?  my  Friends  in  China 


Preface 

"^HE  object  of  this  book  is  to  describe  the  operation 
upon  and  within  old,  conservative,  exclusive  China 
of  the  three  great  transforming  forces  of  the  modern 

world Western  trade,  Western  politics  and  Western  religion. 

These  forces  are  producing  stupendous  changes  in  that  hitherto 
sluggish  iTiass  of  humanity.  The  full  significance  of  these 
changes  both  to  China  and  to  the  world  cannot  be  compre- 
hended now.  There  is  something  fascinating  and  at  the  same 
lime  something  appalling  in  the  spectacle  of  a  nation  number- 
ing nearly  one-third  of  the  human  race  slowly  and  majestically 
rousing  itself  from  the  torpor  of  ages  under  the  influence  of 
new  and  powerful  revolutionary  forces.  No  other  movement 
of  our  age  is  so  colossal,  no  other  is  more  pregnant  with  mean- 
ing. In  the  words  of  D.  C.  Bougler,  "  The  grip  of  the  outer 
world  has  tightened  round  China.  It  will  either  strangle  her 
or  galvanize  her  into  fresh  life." 

The  immediate  occasion  of  this  volume  was  the  invitation  of 
the  faculty  of  Princeton  Theological  Seminary  to  deliver  a  se- 
ries of  lectures  on  China  on  the  Student  Lectureship  Founda- 
tion and  to  publish  them  in  book  form.  This  will  account  in 
part  for  the  style  of  some  passages.  I  have,  however,  added 
considerable  material  which  was  not  included  in  the  lectures, 
while  some  articles  that  were  contributed  to  the  Century  Mag- 
azine, the  American  Monthly  Review  of  Reviews  and  other 
magazines  have  been  inserted  in  their  proper  place  in  the  discus- 
sion. The  materials  were  gathered  not  only  in  study  and 
correspondence  but  in  an  extended  tour  of  Asia  in  the  years 
1901   and   1902.     In  that  tour,  advantage  was  taken  of  every 

5 


6  Preface 

opportunity  to  confer  with  Cliinese  of  all  classes,  foreign  con- 
suls, editors,  business  men  and  American,  German  and  British 
officials,  as  well  as  with  missionaries  of  all  denominations. 
Everywhere  I  was  cordially  received,  and,  as  I  look  at  my 
voluminous  note-books,  I  am  very  grateful  to  the  men  of  all 
faiths  and  nationalities  who  so  generously  aided  me  in  my 
search  for  information. 

No  one  system  of  spelling  Chinese  names  has  been  followed 
for  the  simple  reason  that  no  one  has  been  generally  accepted. 
The  Chinese  characters  represent  words  and  ideas  rather  than 
letters  and  can  only  be  phonetically  reproduced  in  English. 
Unfortunately,  scholars  differ  widely  as  to  this  phonetic  spell- 
ing, while  each  nationality  works  in  its  own  peculiarities  wher- 
ever practicable.  And  so  we  have  Manchuria,  Mantchuria  and 
Manchouria;  Kiao-chou,  Kiau-Tshou,  Kiao-Chau,  Kiau- 
tschou  and  Kiao-chow ;  Chinan  and  Tsi-nan ;  Ychou,  Ichow 
and  I-chou ;  Tsing-tau  and  Ching-Dao;  while  Mukden  is  confus- 
ingly known  as  Moukden,  Shen-Yang,  Feng-tien-fu  and  Sheng- 
king.  As  some  authors  follow  one  system,  some  another  and  some 
none  at  all,  and  as  usage  varies  in  different  parts  of  the  Em- 
pire, an  attempt  at  uniformity  would  have  involved  the  correc- 
tion of  quotations  and  the  changing  of  forms  that  have  the  sanc- 
tion of  established  usage  as,  for  example,  the  alteration  of 
Chefoo  to  Chi-fu  or  Tshi-fu.  I  have  deemed  it  wise,  as  a  rule, 
to  omit  the  aspirate  (e.  g.,  Tai-shan  instead  of  T'ai-shan)  as 
unintelligible  to  one  who  does  not  speak  Chinese.  Few  for- 
eigners except  missionaries  can  pronounce  Chinese  names  cor- 
rectly anyway.  Besides,  no  matter  what  the  system  of  spell- 
ing, the  pronunciation  differs,  the  Chinese  themselves  in  va- 
rious parts  of  the  Empire  pronouncing  the  name  of  the  Imperial 
City  Beh-ging,  Bay-ging,  Bai-ging  and  Bei-jing,  while  most 
foreigners  pronounce  it  Pe-kin  or  Pi-king.  I  have  followed  the 
best  obtainable  advice  in  using  the  hyphen  between  the  differ- 
ent parts  of  many  proper  names.  For  the  rest  I  join  the 
perplexed  reader  who  devoutly  hopes  that  the  various  commit- 


Preface  7 

tees  that  are  at  work  on  the  Romanization  of  the  Chinese  lan- 
guage may  in  time  agree  among  themselves  and  evolve  a  system 
that  a  plain,  wayfaring  man  can  understand  without  provoca- 
tion to  wrath. 

756  Fifth  Avenue, 
New   York  City, 


Contents 

PART  I 

OLD  CHINA  AND  ITS  PEOPLE 

I.  The  Ancient  Empire  .  .  .  .  .  .15 

II.  Do  We  Rightly  View  the  Chinese       ...        25 

III.  Attitude    Towards    Foreigners — Character  and 

Achievements      .  .  .  .  .  -3? 

IV.  A  Typical  Province  ......       45 

V.  A  Shendza  in  Shantung        .....        52 

VI.  At  the  Grave  of  Confucius  ....        65 

VII.  Some    Experiences  of  a  Traveller — Feasts,  Inns 

and  Soldiers        ......        84 

PART  II 

THE    COMMERCIAL   FORCE  AND  THE  ECONOMIC 

REVOLUTION 

VIII.  World  Conditions  that  are  Affecting  China  .      10 1 

IX.  The  Economic  Revolution  in  Asia        .  .  .111 

X.  Foreign  Trade  and  Foreign  Vices         .          .  .121 
XL  The  Building  of  Railways          .          .          .  .130 

PART  III 

THE    POLITICAL   FORCE  AND  THE  NATIONAL 

PROTEST 

XII.  The  Aggressions  of  European  Powers  .  .145 

XIII.  The  United  States  and  China     .  .  .  .154 

XIV.  Diplomatic  Relations — Treaties  .  .  .165 

9 


10 


Contents 


XV.  Renewed  Aggressions      .  .  .  .  .174 

XVI.  Growing  Irritation  of  the  Chinese — The  Re- 

form Party       .  .  .  .  .  .184 

XVII.  The  Boxer  Uprising       .         .         .         .         •      ^93 


PART  IV 

THE  MISSIONARY  FORCE  AND  THE  CHINESE 

CHURCH 

XVIII.  Beginnings  of  the  Missionary  Enterprise — The 

Tai-ping  Rebellion  and  the  Later  Develop- 
ment .  .  .  .  .  .  .217 

XIX.  Missionaries  and  Native  Lawsuits  .  .  .      228 

XX.  Missionaries  and  Their  Own  Governments       .      236 
XXL  Responsibility  of  Missionaries  for  the  Boxer 

Uprising   .......      249 

XXII.  The  Chinese  Christians  ....      268 

XXIII.  The  Strain  of  Readjustment  to  Changed  Eco- 

nomic Conditions       .....      280 

XXIV.  Comity  and  Cooperation        ....     290 


PART  V 

THE  FUTURE  OF  CHINA  AND  OUR  RELATION 

TO   IT 

XXV.  Is  There  a  Yellow  Peril         ....      305 

XXVI.  Fresh  Reason  to  Hate  the  Foreigner       .  .320 

XX VII.  Hopeful  Signs        .  .  .  .  .  -333 

XXVIII.  The  Paramount  Duty  of  Christendom    .  -35' 
Index    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         '371 


List  of  Illustrations 


Railway  Station,  Paoting-fu 

View  of  Canton,  Showing  House  Boats 

H.  I.  H.  Prince  Su  and  Attendants 

A  Rut  in  the  Loess  Region 

Germans  Building  Railway  Bridge  in  Shantung 

A  Shendza  in  Shantung 

Climbing  Tai-shan,  the  Sacred  Mountain 

The  Grave  of  Confucius 

Part  of  the  Author's  Escort  of  Chinese  Cavalrymen 

Watching  the  Author  writing  in  his  Diary  at  a  noon 

A  Snap  Shot  ..... 

The  Bund,  Shanghai  ..... 
American  Cigarette  Posters  on  a  Chinese  Bridge 
The  Chinese  Cart  ..... 

The  Old  and  The  New  .... 

French  Military  Post,  Saigon   .... 
German  Soldiers  on  the  Bund,  Tien-tsin    . 
The  British  Legation  Guard,  Peking 
The  Temple  of  Heaven,  Peking 
Memorial  Arch,  Hall  of  the  Classics,  Peking 
Graduating  Class,  Presbyterian  Theological  Seminary 

ton,  1904       ...... 

Approach   to   the   Imperial    Palace  in   the  Forbidden 

Peking  ...... 

Two  of  China's   Great   Men — Yuan   Shih   Kai  and 

Chih-tung      ...... 

Map 


Facing 


stop — 


Can 

City 
Chang 


Page 

Title 

22 

32 

46 

56 
56 

70 
70 
92 

92 
112 
1 12 
130 
130 
150 
150 

174 
198 
228 

268 

320 

344 
370 


PART  I 

Old  China  and  its  People 


H 


THE  ANCIENT  EMPIRE 

E  must  be  dead  to  all  noble  thoughts  who  can  tread 
the  venerable  continent  of  Asia  without  profound 
emotion.  Beyond  any  other  part  of  the  earth,  its 
soil  teems  with  historic  associations.  Here  was  the  birthplace 
of  the  human  race.  Here  first  appeared  civilization.  Here 
were  born  art  and  science,  learning  and  philosophy.  Here  man 
first  engaged  in  commerce  and  manufacture.  And  here 
emerged  all  the  religious  teachers  who  have  most  powerfully 
influenced  mankind,  for  it  was  in  Asia  in  an  unknown  antiq- 
uity that  the  Persian  Zoroaster  taught  the  dualism  of  good  and 
evil ;  that  the  Indian  Gautama  600  years  before  Christ  declared 
that  self-abnegation  was  the  path  to  a  dreamless  Nirvana ;  that 
less  than  a  century  later  the  Chinese  Lao-tse  enunciated  the 
mysteries  of  Taoism  and  Confucius  uttered  his  maxims  re- 
garding the  five  earthly  relations  of  man,  to  be  followed  within 
another  century  by  the  bold  teaching  of  Mencius  that  kings 
should  rule  in  righteousness.  In  Asia  it  was  1,000  years  after- 
wards that  the  Arabian  Mohammed  proclaimed  himself  as  the 
authoritative  prophet.  There  the  God  and  Father  of  us  all  re- 
vealed Himself  to  Hebrew  sage  and  prophet  in  the  night  vision 
and  the  angelic  form  and  the  still,  small  voice ;  and  in  Asia  are 
the  village  in  which  was  cradled  and  the  great  altar  of  tlie 
world  on  which  was  crucified  the  Son  of  God. 

We  of  the  West  boast  of  our  national  history.  But  how  brief 
is  our  day  compared  with  the  succession  of  world  powers  which 
Asia  has  seen. 

Chaldea  began  the  march  of  kingdoms  2,200  years  before 

15 


l6  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Christ.  Its  proud  king,  Chedor-laomer,  ruled  from  the  Per- 
sian Gulf  to  the  sources  of  the  Euphrates,  and  from  the  Zagros 
Mountains  to  the  Mediterranean,  Then  Egypt  arose  to  rule 
not  only  over  the  northeastern  part  of  Africa,  but  over  half  of 
Arabia  and  all  of  the  preceding  territory  of  Chaldea.  Assyria 
followed,  stretching  from  the  Black  Sea  nearly  half-way  down 
the  Persian  Gulf  and  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  eastern 
boundary  of  modern  Persia.  Babylon,  too,  was  once  a  world 
power  whose  monarch  sat 

"  High  on  a  throne  of  royal  state,  which  far 
Outshone  the  wealth  of  Ormus  or  of  Ind."  • 

Persia  was  mightier  still.  Two  thousand  years  before  America 
was  heard  of,  while  France  and  Germany,  England  and  Spain, 
were  savage  wildernesses,  Persia  was  the  abode  of  civilization 
and  culture,  of  learning  and  eloquence.  Her  empire  extended 
from  the  Indus  to  the  Danube  and  from  the  Oxus  to  the  Nile, 
embracing  twenty  satrapies  each  one  of  whose  governors  was 
well-nigh  a  king.  Alexander  the  Great,  too,  at  the  head  of 
his  invincible  army,  swept  over  vast  areas  of  Asia,  capturing 
cities,  unseating  rulers,  and  bringing  well-nigh  all  the  civilized 
world  under  his  dominion.  And  was  not  Rome  also  an  Asi- 
atic power,  for  it  stretched  not  only  from  the  firths  of  Scot- 
land on  the  north  to  the  deserts  of  Africa  on  the  south,  but 
from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  on  the  west  to  the  River  Euphrates  on 
the  east. 

Altogether  it  is  a  majestic  but  awful  procession,  overwhelm- 
ing us  by  its  grandeur  and  yet  no  less  by  its  horror.  It  is 
a  kaleidoscope  on  a  colossal  scale,  whose  pieces  appear  like 
fragments  of  a  broken  universe.  Empires  rise  and  fall. 
Thrones  are  erected  and  overturned.  The  mightiest  creations 
of  man  vanish.  Yea,  they  have  all  waxed  "old  as  doth  a  gar- 
ment," and  "as  a  vesture"  are  they  "changed." 

But  were  these  ancient  nations  the  last  of  Asia  ?     Has  that 

>  Milton,  "  Paradise  Lost,"  Book  11. 


The  Ancient  Empire  17 

mighty  continent  nothing  more  to  contribute  to  the  world  than 
the  memories  of  a  mighty  past  ?  It  is  impossible  to  believe 
that  this  is  all.  The  historic  review  gives  a  momentum  which 
the  mind  cannot  easily  overcome.  As  we  look  towards  the  Far 
East,  we  can  plainly  see  that  the  evolution  is  incomplete.  What- 
ever purpose  the  Creator  had  in  mind  has  certainly  not  yet  been 
accomplished.  More  than  two-thirds  of  those  innumerable 
myriads  have  as  yet  never  heard  of  those  high  ideals  of  life  and 
destiny  which  God  Himself  revealed  to  men.  It  is  incredible 
that  a  wise  God  should  have  made  such  a  large  part  of  the 
world  only  to  arrest  its  development  at  its  present  unfinished 
stage,  inconceivable  that  He  should  have  made  and  preserved 
so  large  a  part  of  the  human  race  for  no  other  and  higher  pur- 
pose than  has  yet  been  achieved. 

Within  this  generation,  a  new  Asiatic  power  has  suddenly  ap- 
peared in  a  part  of  Asia  far  removed  from  the  region  in  which 
the  wise  men  of  old  lived  and  studied,  and  the  might  of 
that  nation  is  even  now  checking  the  progress  of  huge  and 
haughty  Russia.  But  brilliant  as  has  been  the  meteoric  career 
of  Japan,  there  is  another  race  in  Asia,  which,  though  now 
moving  more  sluggishly,  has  possibilities  of  development  that 
may  in  time  make  it  a  dominant  factor  in  the  future  of  the 
world.  Great  forces  are  now  operating  on  that  race  and  it  is 
the  purpose  of  this  book  to  give  some  account  of  those  forces 
and  to  indicate  the  stupendous  transformation  which  they  are 
slowly  but  surely  producing. 

The  magnitude  of  China  is  almost  overwhelming.  In  spite 
of  all  that  I  had  read,  I  was  amazed  by  what  I  saw.  To  say 
that  the  Empire  has  an  area  of  4,218,401  square  miles  is  almost 
like  saying  that  it  is  255,000,000,000  miles  to  the  North  Star; 
the  statement  conveys  no  intelligible  idea.  The  mind  is  only  con- 
fused by  such  enormous  figures.  But  it  may  help  us  to  remember 
that  China  is  one-third  larger  than  all  Europe,  and  that  if  the 
United  States  and  Alaska  could  be  laid  upon  China  there 
would  be  room  left  for  several  Great  Britains.     Extending  from 


i8  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

the  fifty-fourth  parallel  of  latitude  southward  to  the  eighteenth, 
the  Empire  has  every  variety  of  climate  from  arctic  cold  to 
tropic  heat.  It  is  a  land  of  vast  forests,  of  fertile  soil,  of  rich 
minerals,  of  navigable  rivers.  The  very  fact  that  it  has  so  long 
sustained  such  a  vast  population  suggests  the  richness  of  its  re- 
sources. There  are  said  to  be  600,000,000  acres  of  arable  soil, 
and  so  thriftily  is  it  cultivated  that  many  parts  of  the  Empire 
are  almost  continuous  gardens  and  fields.  Four  hundred  and 
nineteen  thousand  square  miles  are  believed  to  be  underlaid 
with  coal.  Baron  von  Richthoven  thinks  that  600,000,000,000 
tons  of  it  are  anthracite,  and  that  the  single  Province  of  Shen-si 
could  supply  the  entire  world  for  a  thousand  years.  When  we 
add  to  this  supply^of  coal  the  apparently  inexhaustible  deposits 
of  iron  ore,  we  have  the  two  products  on  which  material  great- 
ness largely  depends. 

The  population  proves  to  be  even  greater  than  was  supposed, 
for  while  400,000,000  was  formerly  believed  to  be  a  maximum 
estimate,  the  general  census  recently  taken  by  the  Chinese 
Government  for  the  purpose  of  assessing  the  war  tax  places  the 
population  of  the  Empire  at  426,000,000.  This,  however, 
includes  8,500,000  in  Manchuria,  2,580,000  in  Mongolia, 
6,430,020  in  Tibet  and  1,200,000  in  Chinese  Turkestan. 
Some  of  these  regions  are  only  nominally  Chinese.  Those  on 
the  western  frontier  were  until  comparatively  recent  years 
almost  as  unknown  as  the  poles.  Sven  Hedin's  description  of 
those  that  he  traversed  is  wonderfully  fascinating.  Only  a 
daring  spirit,  the  explorer  of  the  type  that  is  born,  not  made, 
could  have  pierced  those  vast  solitudes  and  wrested  from  them 
the  secret  of  their  existence.  That  Hedin  had  no  money  for 
such  a  costly  quest  could  not  deter  this  Viking  of  the  Northland. 
Kings  headed  the  subscription  and  others  so  eagerly  followed 
that  ample  funds  were  soon  in  hand.  Princes  helped  with 
equipment  and  counsel.  The  Czar  made  all  Russian  railways 
free  highways,  and  every  local  official  and  nomad  chieftain 
exerted  himself  to  aid  the  expedition.     Hedin  does  not  claim 


The  Ancient  Empire  19 

to  give  anything  more  tlian  an  ordered  diary  of  his  travels,  to- 
gether with  a  description  of  the  lands  he  explored  and  the 
peoples  he  found.  But  what  a  diary  it  is  !  It  takes  the  reader 
away  from  the  whirl  of  crowded  cities  and  clanging  trolley-cars 
into  the  boundless,  wind-swept  desert  and  the  solitude  of 
majestic  mountains  where  the  lonely  traveller  wanders  with  his 
camels  through  untrodden  wildernesses  or  floats  down  the 
interminable  stretches  of  unknown  rivers,  while  night  after 
night  he  sleeps  in  his  tiny  tent  or  under  the  open  sky.  The 
author  failed  to  reach  the  long-sought  Lassa,  the  suspicious 
Dalai  Lama  refusing  to  be  deceived  or  cajoled  and  sternly  send- 
ing the  inquisitive  traveller  out  of  the  country.  But  the  expedi- 
tion of  three  years  and  three  days  was  rich  in  other  disclosures  of 
ruined  cities  and  great  watercourses  and  lofty  plateaus  and 
majestic  mountain  ranges.  The  population  is  sparse  in  those 
desolate  wastes,  and  the  scattered  inhabitants  are  wild  and  un- 
couth and  free. 

Manchuria,  however,  is  far  from  being  the  barren  country 
that  so  many  imagine  it  to  be.  It  is,  in  many  respects,  like 
Canada,  a  region  embracing  about  370,000  square  miles  and  of 
almost  boundless  agricultural  and  mineral  wealth.  The 
population,  save  in  the  southern  parts,  is  not  yet  dense  but  it  is 
rapidly  increasing. 

But  in  central  and  eastern  China,  the  conditions  are  very 
different.  Here  the  population  can  only  be  indicated  by  a 
figure  so  large  that  it  is  almost  impossible  for  us  to  compre- 
hend it.  Consider  that  the  eighteen  provinces  alone,  with  an 
area  about  equal  to  that  part  of  the  United  States  east  of  the 
Mississippi  River,  have  eight  times  the  population  of  that 
part  of  our  country. 

"There  are  twice  as  many  people  in  China  as  on  the  four  continents — 
Africa,  North  and  South  America  and  Oceanica.  Every  third  person 
who  toils  under  the  sun  and  sleeps  under  God's  stars  is  a  Chinese. 
Every  third  child  born  into  the  world  looks  into  the  face  of  a  Chinese 
mother.     Every   third   pair   given    in   marriage  plight  their   troth    in  a 


20  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Chinese  cup  of  wine.  Every  third  orphan  weeping  through  the  day 
every  third  widow  wailing  through  the  night  are  in  China,  Put  them  in 
rank,  joining  hands,  and  they  will  girdle  the  globe  ten  times  at  the  equa- 
tor with  living,  beating  human  hearts.  Constitute  them  pilgrims  and  let 
two  thousand  go  past  every  day  and  night  under  the  sunlight  and 
under  the  solemn  stars,  and  you  must  hear  the  ceaseless  tramp,  tramp,  of 
the  weary,  pressing,  throbbing  throng  for  five  hundred  years."* 

There  is  something  amazing  in  the  immensity  of  the  popula- 
tion. Great  cities  are  surprisingly  numerous.  In  America,  a 
city  of  nearly  a  million  inhabitants  is  a  wonderful  place  and  all 
the  world  is  supposed  to  know  about  it.  But  while  Canton  and 
Tien-tsin  are  tolerably  familiar  names,  how  many  in  the  United 
States  ever  heard  of  Hsiang-tan-hsien  ?  Yet  Hsiang-tan- 
hsien  is  said  to  have  1,000,000  inhabitants,  while  within  com- 
paratively short  distances  are  other  great  cities  and  innumer- 
able villages.  In  the  Swatow  region,  within  a  territory  a 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  long  and  fifty  miles  wide,  there  are  no 
less  than  ten  walled  cities  of  from  40,000  to  250,000  inhabit- 
ants, besides  hundreds  of  towns  and  villages  ranging  from  a  few 
hundred  to  25,000  or  30,000  people.  Men  never  tire  of  writ- 
ing about  the  population  adjacent  to  New  York,  Boston  and 
Chicago.  But  in  five  weeks'  constant  journeying  through  the 
interior  of  the  Shantung  Province,  there  was  hardly  an  hour  in 
which  multitudes  were  not  in  sight.  There  are  no  scattered 
farmhouses  as  in  America,  but  the  people  live  in  villages  and 
towns,  the  latter  strongly  walled  and  even  the  former  often  have 
a  mud  wall.  As  the  country  is  comparatively  level,  it  was  easy 
to  count  them,  and  as  a  rule  there  were  a  dozen  or  more  in 
plain  view,  I  recall  a  memorable  morning.  It  was  Friday, 
June  28,  1 90 1.  We  had  risen  early,  and  by  daylight  we  had 
breakfasted,  and  started  our  carts  and  litters.  In  our  enjoy- 
ment of  the  cool,  delicious  morning  air,  we  walked  for  several 
li.  Just  before  the  sun  rose,  we  crossed  a  low  ridge  and  from 
its  crest,  I  counted  no  less  than  thirty  villages  in  front  of  us, 
» The  Rev.  J.  T,  Gracey,  D,  D,,  «'  China  in  Outline,"  p.  10. 


The  Ancient  Empire 


21 


while  behind  there  were  about  as  many  more,  the  average  popu' 
lation  being  apparently  about  500  each.  For  days  at  a  time, 
my  road  lay  through  the  narrow,  crowded  street  of  what  seemed 
to  be  an  almost  continuous  village,  the  intervening  farms  being 
often  hardly  more  than  a  mile  in  width. 

Imagine  half  the  population  of  the  United  States  packed  into 
the  single  state  of  Missouri  and  an  idea  of  the  situation  will  be 
obtained,  for  with  an  area  almost  equal  to  that  of  Missouri, 
Shantung  has  no  less  than  38,247,900  inhabitants.  It  is  the 
most  densely  populated  part  of  China.  But  the  Province  of 
Shan-si  is  as  thickly  settled  as  Hungary.  Fukien  and  Hupeh 
have  about  as  many  inhabitants  to  the  square  mile  as  England. 
Chih-li  is  as  populous  as  France  and  Yun-nan  as  Bulgaria. 

The  density  of  China's  population  may  be  better  realized  by 
a  glance  at  the  following  detailed  comparison  between  the 
population  of  Chinese  provinces  and  the  population  of  similar 
areas  in  the  United  States  : 


Area 

Provinces  Square  miles  Population 

Hupeh,  71,410  35,280,685 

Ohio  and  Indiana,  76,670  5,864,720 

Honan,  67,940  35,316,800 

Missouri,  68,735  2,679,184 

Cheh-kiang,  36,670  11,580,692 

Kentucky,  40,000  1,858,635 

Kiang-si,  69,480  26,532,125 

Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  81,750  3,626,252 

Kwei-chou,  67,160  7,650,282 

Virginia  and  West  Virginia,  64,770  2,418,774 

Yun-nan,  146,680  12,324,574 

Michigan  and  Wisconsin,  111,880  3,780,769 

Fukien,  46,320  22,876,540 

Ohio,  40,760  3,072,316 

Chih-li,  115,800  20,937,000 

Georgia,  50,980  1,837.353 

Shantung,  55,970  38,247,900 

New  England,  62,000  4,700,945 

Shan-si,  81,830  12,200,456 

Illinois,  56,000  3,826,851 

Shen-si,  75.270  8,450,182 

Nebraska,  76,840  1,058,910 


22  New  Forces  in  Old  China 


Kan-su, 

125,450 

10,385,376 

California, 

155.980 

1,208,130 

Sze-chuen, 

218,480 

68,724,890 

Ohio,  Ind.,  111.,  Ky., 

173.430 

11,350,219 

Ngan-hwei, 

54,810 

23,670,314 

New  York, 

47,600 

5,997.853 

Kiang-su, 

38,600 

13,980,235 

Pennsylvania, 

44,985 

5,258,014 

Kwan-tung  and  Hainan, 

99,970 

31,865,251 

Kansas, 

81,700 

1,427,096 

Kwang-si, 

77,200 

5,142,330 

Minnesota, 

79,205 

1,301,826 

Hunan, 

83,380 

22,169,673 

Louisiana, 

45,000 

1,110,569 

Perhaps  the  most  thoroughly  typical  city  in  China  is  Canton. 
The  approach  by  way  of  the  West  River  from  Hongkong 
gives  the  traveller  a  view  of  some  of  the  finest  scenery  in  China. 
The  green  rice-fields,  the  villages  nestling  beneath  the  groves, 
the  stately  palm-trees,  the  quaint  pagodas,  the  broad,  smooth 
reaches  of  the  river  reflecting  the  glories  of  sunset  and  moon- 
rise,  and  the  noble  hills  in  the  background  combine  to  form  a 
scene  worth  journeying  far  to  see. 

But  Canton  itself  is  unique  among  the  world's  great  cities, 
and  the  most  sated  traveller  cannot  fail  to  find  much  that  will 
interest  him.  After  much  journeying  in  China,  we  thought  we 
had  seen  its  typical  places,  but  no  one  has  seen  China  until  he 
has  visited  Canton.  With  an  estimated  population  of  1,800,- 
000,  it  is  the  metropolis  of  the  Empire.  The  number  of  people 
per  acre  may  be  less  than  in  some  parts  of  the  East  Side  in  New 
York,  for  the  houses  are  only  one  story  in  height.  But  the 
crowding  is  amazing.  The  streets  are  mere  alleys  from  four  to 
eight  feet  wide,  lined  with  open-front  shops,  so  filled  overhead 
with  perpendicular  signs  and  cross  coverings  of  bamboo  poles 
and  mattings  that  they  are  in  as  perpetual  shade  as  an  African 
forest,  and  so  choked  with  people  that  men  often  had  to  back 
into  a  shop  to  let  our  chairs  pass.  No  wheeled  vehicle  can 
enter  those  corkscrew  streets  and  we  saw  no  animal  of  any  kind 
save  two  cows  that  were  being  led  to  slaughter. 


CO 

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> 


The  Ancient  Empire  23 

And  the  hubbub  !  Such  shouting  and  yelling  cannot  be 
heard  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  Our  chair  coolies  were  in  a 
constant  state  of  objurgation  in  clearing  a  way.  Everybody 
seemed  to  be  bellowing  to  everybody  else  and  when  two  chairs 
met,  the  din  shattered  the  atmosphere.  A  foreigner  excites  a 
surprising  amount  of  curiosity,  considering  the  number  that 
visit  Canton.  Troops  of  boys  followed  us  and  there  was  a  good 
deal  of  what  sounded  like  cat-calling.  But  it  was  all  good- 
natured,  or  appeared  to  be. 

The  unpretentious  shop-fronts  often  beckon  to  mysteries  that 
are  well  worth  penetrating — tobacco  factories  where  coolies 
stamp  the  leaves  with  bare  feet ;  tea,  gold,  dye  and  embroidery 
shops  where  designs  of  exquisite  delicacy  are  exhibited ;  silk- 
weaving  factories  where  fine  fabrics  are  made  on  the  simplest  of 
looms;  feather  shops  where  breastpins  and  other  ornaments 
are  made  of  tiny  bits  of  feathers  on  a  silver  base — a  work  re- 
quiring almost  incredible  nicety  of  vision  and  such  strain  upon 
the  eyes  that  the  operators  often  become  blind  by  forty.  An- 
other curiosity  is  a  shop  where  crickets  are  reared  for  fighting 
as  the  Filipino  fights  cocks  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  fights  dogs. 
The  Chinese  gamble  on  the  result  and  a  good  fighting  cricket  is 
sometimes  sold  for  $100.  The  attendant  put  a  couple  in  a  jar 
for  our  alleged  amusement  and  they  began  fighting  fiercely. 
But  I  promptly  stopped  the  melee  as  I  did  not  enjoy  such  sport. 

The  river  is  one  of  the  sights  of  China.  It  is  crowded  with 
boats  of  all  sizes.  The  owner  of  each  lives  on  it  with  his 
family,  the  babies  having  ropes  tied  to  them  so  that  if  they 
tumble  into  the  water,  they  can  be  pulled  out. 

Altogether,  it  is  a  remarkable  city.  Viewed  from  the  famous 
Five-Story  Pagoda,  on  a  high  part  of  the  old  city  wall,  it  is  a 
swarming  hive  of  humanity.  As  one  looks  out  on  those  myriads 
of  toiling,  struggling,  sorrowing  men  and  women,  he  is  con- 
scious of  a  new  sense  of  the  pathos  and  the  tragedy  of  human 
life.  If  I  may  adapt  the  words  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Richard  S. 
Storrs  on  the  heights  above  Naples,  at  the  Church  of  San  Mar- 


24  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

tino,  on  the  way  to  St.  Elmo — I  suppose  that  every  one  who 
has  ever  stood  on  the  balcony  of  that  lofty  pagoda  "has 
noticed,  as  I  remember  to  have  noticed,  that  all  the  sounds 
coming  up  from  that  populous  city,  as  they  reached  the  upper 
air,  met  and  mingled  on  the  minor  key.  There  were  the  voices 
of  traffic,  and  the  voices  of  command,  the  voices  of  affection 
and  the  voices  of  rebuke,  the  shouts  of  sailors,  and  the  cries  of 
itinerant  venders  in  the  street,  with  the  chatter  and  the  laugh 
of  childhood ;  but  they  all  came  up  into  this  incessant  moan  in 
the  air.  That  is  the  voice  of  the  world  in  the  upper  air,  where 
there  are  spirits  to  hear  it.  That  is  the  cry  of  the  world  for 
help."» 

1  "  Address  on  Foreign  Missions,"  pp.  178,  179. 


II 

DO  WE  RIGHTLY  VIEW  THE  CHINESE 

TOO  much  has  been  made  of  the  peculiarities  of  the 
Chinese,  ignoring  the  fact  that  many  customs  and 
traits  that  appear  peculiar  to  us  are  simply  the  differ- 
ences developed  by  environment.  Eliza  Scidmore  affirms  that 
"  no  one  knows  or  ever  really  will  know  the  Chinese,  the  most 
comprehensible,  inscrutable,  contradictory,  logical,  illogical 
people  on  earth."  But  a  Chinese  gentleman,  who  was  edu- 
cated in  the  United  States,  justly  retorts  :  "  Behold  the  Ameri- 
can as  he  is,  as  I  honestly  found  him — great,  small,  good,  bad, 
self-glorious,  egotistical,  intellectual,  supercilious,  ignorant, 
superstitious,  vain  and  bombastic.  In  truth,"  he  adds,  "so 
very  remarkable,  so  contradictory,  so  incongruous  have  I  found 
the  American  that  I  hesitate."  ^ 

The  Chinese  are,  indeed,  very  different  from  western  peoples 
in  some  of  their  customs. 

"  They  mount  a  horse  on  the  right  side  instead  of  the  left.  The  old 
men  play  marbles  and  fly  kites,  while  children  look  gravely  on.  They 
shake  hands  with  themselves  instead  of  with  each  other.  What  we  call 
the  surname  is  written  first  and  the  other  name  afterwards.  A  coffin  is  a 
very  acceptable  present  to  a  rich  parent  in  good  health.  In  the  north 
they  sail  and  pull  their  wheelbarrows  in  place  of  merely  pushing  them. 
.  .  .  China  is  a  country  where  the  roads  have  no  carriages  and  the 
ships,  have  no  keels;  where  the  needle  points  to  the  south,  the  place  of 
honour  is  on  the  left  hand,  and  the  seat  of  intellect  is  supposed  to  lie  in  the 
stomach ;  where  it  is  rude  to  take  off  your  hat,  and  to  wear  white  clothes 
is  to  go  into  mourning.  Can  one  be  astonished  to  find  a  literature  without 
an  alphabet  and  a  language  without  a  grammar  ?  "  * 

'  "  As  a  Chinaman  Saw  Us,"  pp.  i,  2. 

*  Temple  Bar,  quoted  in  Smith's  "  Rex  Christus,"  p.  1 15. 

25 


26  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

It  would  never  occur  to  us  to  commit  suicide  in  order  to 
spite  another.  But  in  China  such  suicides  occur  every  day, 
because  it  is  beheved  that  a  death  on  the  premises  is  a  lasting 
curse  to  the  owner.  And  so  the  Chinese  drowns  himself  in  his 
enemy's  well  or  takes  poison  on  his  foe's  door-step.  Only  a 
few  months  ago,  a  rich  Chinese  murdered  an  employee  in  a 
British  colony,  and  knowing  that  inexorable  British  law  would 
not  be  satisfied  until  some  one  was  punished,  he  hired  a  poor 
Chinese  named  Sack  Chum  to  confess  to  having  committed  the 
murder  and  to  permit  himself  to  be  hung,  the  real  murderer 
promising  to  give  him  a  good  funeral  and  to  care  for  his  family. 
An  Englishman  who  thought  this  an  incredible  story  wrote  a 
letter  of  inquiry  to  an  intelligent  Chinese  merchant  of  his 
acquaintance  and  received  the  following  reply : 

"  Nothing  strange  to  Chinamen.  Sack  Chum,  old  man,  no  money,  soon 
die.  Every  day  in  China  such  thing.  Chinaman  not  like  white  man — 
not  afraid  to  die.  Suppose  some  one  pay  his  funeral,  take  care  his  family. 
•  I  die,'  he  say.  Chinaman  know  Sack  Chum,  we  suppose,  sell  himself  to 
men  who  kill  Ah  Chee.  Somebody  must  die  for  them.  Sack  Chum  say 
he  do  it.     All  right.     Police  got  him.     What  for  they  want  more  ?  " 

These  things  appear  odd  from  our  view-point  and  there  are 
many  other  peculiarities  that  are  equally  strange  to  us.  But  it 
may  be  wholesome  for  us  to  remember  that  some  of  our  customs 
impress  the  Chinese  no  less  oddly.  The  Frankfiirter  Zeiiung, 
Germany,  prints  the  following  from  a  Chinese  who  had  seen 
much  of  the  Europeans  and  Americans  in  Shanghai : 

"  We  are  always  told  that  the  countries  of  the  foreign  devils  are  grand 
and  rich;  but  that  cannot  be  true,  else  what  do  they  all  come  here  for? 
It  is  here  that  they  grow  rich.  They  jump  around  and  kick  balls  as  if 
they  were  paid  to  do  it.  Again  you  will  find  them  making  long  tramps 
into  the  country ;  but  that  is  probably  a  religious  duty,  for  when  they 
tramp  they  wave  sticks  in  the  air,  nobody  knows  why.  They  have  no 
sense  of  dignity,  for  they  may  be  found  walking  with  women.  Yet  the 
women  are  to  be  pitied,  too.  On  festive  occasions  they  are  dragged 
around  a  room  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  most  hellish  music." 


Do  We  Rightly  View  the  Chinese  27 

A  Chinese  resident  in  America  wrote  to  his  friends  at  home 
a  letter  from  which  the  following  extract  is  taken  : 

"  What  is  queerer  still,  men  will  stroll  out  in  company  with  their  wives 
in  broad  daylight  without  a  blush.  And  will  you  believe  that  men  and 
women  take  hold  of  each  other's  hands  by  way  of  salutation  ?  Oh,  I  have 
seen  it  myself  more  than  once.  After  all,  what  can  you  expect  of  folk 
who  have  been  brought  up  in  barbarous  countries  on  the  very  verge  of 
the  world  ?  They  have  not  been  taught  the  maxims  of  our  sages  ;  they 
never  heard  of  the  Rites ;  how  can  they  know  what  good  manners  mean  ? 
We  often  think  them  rude  and  insolent  when  I'm  sure  they  don't  mean  it . 
they're  ignorant,  that's  all."  ' 

A  call  that  I  made  upon  a  high  official  in  an  interior  city 
developed  a  curious  interest.  He  was  a  pale,  thin  man, 
apparently  an  opium  smoker  and  a  mandarin  of  the  old  school. 
But  he  was  intelligent  enough  to  ask  me  not  only  about  "  the 
twenty-story  buildings  of  New  York,"  but  "  the  differences  be- 
tween the  various  Protestant  sects,"  and  in  particular  about 
"the  Mormons  and  their  strength  !  "  Who  could  have  im- 
agined that  the  Latter  Day  Saints  of  Utah  could  be  known  to  a 
Chinese  nobleman  of  Chih-li  ?  Verily,  our  own  idiosyncrasies 
are  known  afar. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  mutual  recriminations  regarding 
national  peculiarities  are  not  likely  to  be  convincing  to  either 
party.  Human  nature  is  much  the  same  the  world  over.  From 
this  view-point  at  least  we  may  discreetly  remember  that 

"  There  is  so  much  bad  in  the  best  of  us, 
And  so  much  good  in  the  worst  of  us, 
That  it  hardly  behoves  any  of  us 
To  talk  about  the  rest  of  us." 

I  do  not  mean  to  give  an  exaggerated  impression  of  the 
virtues  of  the  Chinese  or  what  Mrs.  Isabella  Bird  Bishop  calls 
"  a  milk-and-water  idea  "  of  heathenism.  Undoubtedly,  they 
have  grave  defects.  Official  corruption  is  well-nigh  universal. 
A  correspondent  of  the  North-  China  Herald  reports  a  well- 
>  Smith,  "  Rex  Christus,"  p.  Ii6. 


28  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

informed  Chinese  gentleman  of  the  Province  of  Chih-li  as  ex- 
pressing the  conviction  that  one-half  the  land  tax  never  reaches 
the  Government.     "  But  that  is  not  all,"  said  he. 

"  There  are  other  sources  of  income  for  the  hsien  official.  Thus  here 
in  this  county,  thirty-five  or  forty  years  ago,  the  Government  imposed  an 
extra  tax  for  the  purpose  of  putting  down  the  Tai-ping  rebellion,  and  the 
officials  have  continued  to  collect  that  tax  ever  since.  Of  course  if  the 
literati  should  move  in  the  matter  and  report  to  Paoting-fu,  the  magistrate 
would  be  bounced  at  once ;  but  they  are  not  likely  to  do  so.  The  tax  is  a 
small  one,  my  own  share  not  being  more  than  five  dollars  or  so." 

China's  whole  public  service  is  rotten  with  corruption. 
Offices  with  merely  nominal  salaries  or  none  at  all  are  usually 
bought  by  the  payment  of  a  heavy  bribe  and  held  for  a  term  of 
three  years,  during  which  the  incumbent  seeks  not  only  to  re- 
coup himself  but  to  make  as  large  an  additional  sum  as  pos- 
sible. As  the  weakness  of  the  Government  and  the  absence  of 
an  outspoken  public  press  leave  them  free  from  restraint,  China 
is  the  very  paradise  of  embezzlers.  "  Any  man  who  has  had  the 
least  occasion  to  deal  with  Chinese  courts  knows  that  '  every 
man  has  his  price,'  that  not  only  every  underling  can  be 
bought,  but  that  999  out  of  every  1,000  officials,  high  or  low, 
will  favour  the  man  who  offers  the  most  money."  ^  Dishonesty 
is  not,  as  with  the  white  race,  simply  the  recourse  in  emergency 
of  the  unscrupulous  man.  It  is  the  habitual  practice,  the  rule 
of  intercourse  of  all  classes.  The  Chinese  apparently  have  no 
conscience  on  the  subject,  but  appear  to  deem  it  quite  praise- 
worthy to  deceive  you  if  they  can. 

Gambling  is  openly,  shamelessly  indulged  in  by  all  classes. 
As  for  immorality,  the  Rev.  Dr.  J.  Campbell  Gibson  of  Swatow 
says  that  "  while  the  Chinese  are  not  a  moral  people,  vice  has 
never  in  China  as  in  India,  been  made  a  branch  of  religion." 
But  the  Rev.  Dr.  C.  H.  Fenn,  of  Peking,  declares  "  that  every 
village  and  town  and  city — it  would  not  be  a  very  serious  ex- 

'  Rev.  Dr.  C.  H.  Fenn,  Peking. 


Do  We  Rightly  View  the  Chinese  29 

aggeration  to  say  every  home, — fairly  reeks  with  impurity." 
The  Chinese  are,  indeed,  less  openly  immoral  than  the  Japanese, 
while  their  venerated  books  abound  with  the  praises  of  virtue. 
But  medical  missionaries  could  tell  a  dark  story  of  the  extent 
to  which  immorality  eats  into  the  very  warp  and  woof  of 
Chinese  society.  The  five  hundred  monks  in  the  Lama 
Temple  in  Peking  are  notorious  not  only  for  turbulence  and 
robbery,  but  for  vice.  The  temple  is  in  a  spacious  park  and 
includes  many  imposing  buildings.  The  statue  of  Buddha  is 
said  to  be  the  largest  in  China — a  gilded  figure  about  sixty  feet 
high — colossal  and  rather  awe-inspiring  in  "the  dim  religious 
light."  But  in  one  of  the  temple  buildings,  where  the  two 
monks  who  accompanied  us  said  that  daily  prayers  were 
chanted,  I  saw  representations  in  brass  and  gilt  that  were  as 
filthily  obscene  as  anything  that  I  saw  in  India.  There  is  im- 
morality in  lands  that  are  called  Christian,  but  it  is  disavowed 
by  Christianity,  ostracized  by  decent  people  and  under  the  ban 
of  the  civil  law.  But  Buddhism  puts  immorality  in  its  temples 
and  the  Government  supports  it.  This  particular  temple  has 
the  yellow  tiled  roofs  that  are  only  allowed  on  buildings  as- 
sociated with  the  Imperial  Court  or  that  are  under  special 
Imperial  protection.  Mr.  E.  H,  Parker,  after  twenty  years' 
experience  in  China,  writes, 

"  The  Chinese  are  undoubtedly  a  libidinous  people,  with  a  decided  in- 
clination to  be  nasty  about  it.  .  .  .  Rich  mandarins  are  the  most  profli- 
gate class.  .  ,  .  Next  come  the  wealthy  merchants.  ,  .  .  The 
crapulous  leisured  classes  of  Peking  openly  flaunt  the  worst  of  vices. 
.  .  .  Still,  amongst  all  classes  and  ranks  the  moral  sense  is  decidedly 
weak.  .  .  .  Offenses  which  with  us  are  regarded  as  almost  capital — 
in  any  case  as  infamous  crimes — do  not  count  for  as  much  as  petty  misde- 
meanours in  China."  ' 

More  patent  to  the  superficial  observer  is  a  cruelty  which 
appears  to  be  callously  indifferent  to  suffering.  This  manifests 
itself  not  only  in  most  barbarous  punishments  but  in  a  thou- 

'  "  China,"  pp.  272,  273. 


3©  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

sand  incidents  of  daily  life.  The  day  I  entered  China  at 
Chefoo,  I  saw  a  dying  man  lying  beside  the  road.  Hundreds 
of  Chinese  were  passing  and  repassing  on  the  crowded  thor- 
oughfare. But  none  stopped  to  help  or  to  pity  and  the  sufferer 
passed  through  his  last  agony  absolutely  uncared  for  and  lay 
with  glazing  eyes  and  stiffening  form  all  unheeded  by  the  care- 
less throng.  Twenty-four  hours  afterwards,  he  was  still  lying 
there  with  his  dead  face  upturned  to  the  silent  sky,  while  the 
world  jostled  by,  buying,  laughing,  quarrelling,  heedless  of  the 
tragedy  of  human  life  so  near.  And  when  in  Ching-chou-fu,  I 
stopped  to  see  if  I  could  not  give  some  relief  to  a  woman  who 
was  writhing  in  the  street,  I  was  hastily  warned  that  if  I 
touched  her  unasked,  the  populace  might  hold  me  responsible 
in  the  event  of  her  death  and  perhaps  demand  heavy  damages, 
if,  indeed,  it  did  not  mob  me  on  the  spot.  Undoubtedly  the 
Chinese  are  often  deterred  from  aiding  a  sufferer  because  they 
fear  that  if  death  occurs  "  bad  luck  "  will  follow  them,  a  horde  of 
real  or  fictitious  relatives  will  clamour  for  damages,  and  perhaps  a 
rapacious  magistrate  will  take  advantage  of  the  opportunity  to 
make  a  criminal  charge  which  can  be  removed  only  by  a  heavy 
bribe.  And  so  the  sick  and  poor  are  often  left  to  die  uncared 
for  in  crowded  streets,  and  drowning  children  are  allowed  to 
sink  within  a  few  yards  of  boats  which  might  have  rescued 
them.  But  everywhere  in  China,  little  attention  is  paid  to 
suffering  and  many  customs  seem  utterly  heartless. 

In  spite,  too,  of  the  agnostic  teachings  of  Confucius  and 
tlieir  own  practical  temperament,  the  Chinese  are  a  very  super- 
stitious people  and  live  in  constant  terror  of  evil  spirits.  The 
grossest  superstitions  prevail  among  them,  while  beyond  any 
other  people  known  to  us  they  are  stagnant,  spiritually  dead, 
densely  ignorant  of  those  higher  levels  of  thought  and  life  to 
which  Christianity  has  raised  whole  classes  in  Europe  and 
America. 

Some  people  who  are  ignorant  of  the  real  situation  in  China 
are  being  misled  by  an  anonymous  little  book  entitled  "Letters 


Do  We  Rightly  View  the  Chinese  31 

from  a  Chinese  Ofificial."  The  author  insists  that  Anglo-Saxon 
institutions  are  far  inferior  to  the  institutions  of  China.  He 
declares  that  "  our  religion  (Chinese)  is  more  rational  than 
yours,  our  morality  higher  and  our  institutions  more  perfect," 
and  that  there  is  less  real  happiness  in  Europe  and  America 
than  in  China.  As  for  Christianity,  he  regards  it  as  quite  im- 
practicable. He  holds  that  Confucianism  is  feasible  and  that 
Christianity  is  not,  and  much  more  to  the  same  effect.  There 
is  some  internal  evidence  that  the  author  is  not  a  Chinese  at  all, 
but  a  cynical  European.  At  any  rate,  the  book  is  an  ex  parte 
statement  of  the  most  glaring  kind,  omitting  the  good  in 
Europe  and  America  and  the  bad  in  China.  One  who  has 
visited  the  Celestial  Empire  gasps  when  he  reads  that  the  Chi- 
nese houses  are  "  cheerful  and  clean,"  that  the  Chinese  live  the 
life  of  the  mind  and  the  spirit  to  a  far  higher  degree  than  the 
Christian  peoples  of  the  West,  and  that  Chinese  life  has  a  dig- 
nity and  peace  and  beauty  which  Europe  cannot  equal.  "  Such 
silence!  Such  sounds!  Such  perfume!  Such  colour!" 
the  author  rhapsodizes.  Bishop  Graves,  of  Shanghai,  who  has 
spent  a  quarter  of  a  century  in  China  and  who  is  therefore  pre- 
sumably competent  to  speak,  declares  : 

"  Far  be  it  from  me  to  belittle  the  beauty  of  the  Chinese  landscape  ; 
but  why  did  he  not  leave  out  that  about  the  perfume  ?  Why,  you  can 
smell  China  out  at  sea !  However,  it  is  just  as  easy  to  imagine  the  per- 
fume as  the  rest  of  it,  while  you  are  writing.  .  .  .  Exaggeration  is 
the  most  conspicuous  note  of  these  '  Letters.'  Any  one  who  has  not 
seen  China  can  test  whether  this  book  is  true  to  fact  by  comparing  it  with 
any  narrative  of  sober  travel,  and  if  he  happens  to  live  in  China,  his  own 
nose  and  eyes  are  a  sufficient  witness.  .  .  .  The  writer  takes  the 
worst  of  our  morals,  the  weakest  of  our  religion,  the  most  debasing  of  our 
industrial  conditions,  the  most  pernicious  of  our  vices,  and  against  them 
he  sets  not  the  best  that  China  can  show,  but  an  exaggerated  picture 
which  is  false  to  fact.  This  is  not  argument  but  trickery,  because  it  pre- 
sumes on  the  fact  that  one's  readers  will  know  no  better." 

Indeed,   the   Rev.    Dr.    C.   H.    Fenn,   who  has  resided  in 


32  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Peking  for  ten  years,  writes  that  he  cannot  believe  that  the 
author  of  "  Letters  from  a  Chinese  Official  "  is  a  sincere  man. 
He  continues : 

"  I  would  be  almost  willing  to  assert  that  it  is  impossible  for  a  man, 
brought  up  in  China,  then  spending  many  years  abroad,  to  return  to  China 
and  write  such  a  book  in  honesty  and  sincerity  of  heart.  He  could  not 
possibly  help  knowing  that  nine-tenths  of  what  he  was  writing  about 
China  was  absolutely  untrue,  that  her  political,  legal,  social,  domestic  and 
personal  life  are  rotten  to  the  core,  and  that  only  in  a  few  exceptional 
cases  is  any  pretence  even  made  of  living  according  to  the  ethics  of  Con- 
fucius. It  might  be  possible  for  an  educated  man,  whose  surroundings 
had  always  been  of  an  exceptionally  good  character,  and  who  had  never 
gone  outside  of  his  own  province  or  studied  foreign  books,  to  write  with 
some  enthusiasm  of  the  beauties  of  Chinese  life,  but  not  for  any  one  else." 

Still,  at  a  time  when  the  Chinese  are  being  so  vociferously- 
abused,  it  is  only  fair  that  we  should  give  them  credit  for  the 
good  qualities  which  they  do  possess.  I  ask  with  Dr.  William 
Elliott  Griffis :  "In  talking  of  our  brother  men,  what  shall 
be  our  general  principle,  detraction  or  fair  play?  Because 
lackadaisical  writers  picture  the  Christless  nations  as  in  the 
innocence  of  Eden,  shall  we,  at  the  antipodes  of  fact  and 
truth,  proceed  to  blacken  their  characters  ?  Shall  we  compare 
the  worst  in  Canton,  Benares  or  Zululand,  with  the  best  in  Lon- 
don, Berlin  or  Philadelphia?  Surely  God  cannot  look  with 
complacency  or  hear  with  delight  much  of  the  practical  slander 
spoken  among  white  folks  and  Anglo-Saxons  of  His  children 
and  our  brothers." 

There  has  been  too  much  of  a  disposition  to  think  of  the 
Chinese  as  a  mass,  almost  as  we  would  regard  immense  herds 
of  cattle  or  shoals  of  fish.  Why  not  rather  think  of  the 
Chinese  as  an  individual,  as  a  man  of  like  passions  with  our- 
selves? Physically,  mentally,  and  morally  he  differs  from  us 
only  in  degree,  not  in  kind.  He  has  essentially  the  same  hopes 
and  fears,  the  same  joys  and  sorrows,  the  same  susceptibility  to 
pain  and  the  same  capacity  for  happiness.     Are  we  not  told 


Do  We  Rightly  View  the  Chinese  33 

that  God  ' '  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men  ' '  ? 
We  complacently  imagine  that  we  are  superior  to  the  Chinese. 
But  discussing  the  question  as  to  what  constitutes  superiority 
and  inferiority  of  race,  Benjamin  Kidd  declares  that  "we  shall 
have  to  set  aside  many  of  our  old  ideas  on  the  subject.  Neither 
in  respect  alone  of  colour,  nor  of  descent,  nor  even  of  the  pos- 
session of  high  intellectual  capacity,  can  science  give  us  any 
warrant  for  speaking  of  one  race  as  superior  to  another."  Real 
superiority  is  the  result,  not  so  much  of  anything  inherent  in 
one  race  as  distinguished  from  another,  as  of  the  operation 
upon  a  race  and  within  it  of  certain  uplifting  forces.  Any 
superiority  that  we  now  possess  is  due  to  the  action  upon  us  of 
these  forces.  But  they  can  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
Chinese  as  well  as  upon  us.  VVe  should  avoid  the  popular 
mistake  of  looking  at  the  Chinese  "as  if  they  were  merely 
animals  with  a  toilet,  and  never  see  the  great  soul  in  a  man's 
face."  '  "  There  is  nothing,"  says  Stopford  Brooke,  "  that  needs 
so  much  patience  as  just  judgment  of  a  man.  We  ought  to 
know  his  education,  the  circumstances  of  his  life,  the  friends 
he  has  made  or  lost,  his  temperament,  his  daily  work,  the  mo- 
tives which  filled  the  act,  the  health  he  had  at  the  time — we 
ought  to  have  the  knowledge  of  God  to  judge  him  justly." 

We  need  in  this  study  a  truer  idea  of  the  worth  and  dignity 
of  man  as  man,  a  realization  that  back  of  almond  eyes  and  un- 
der a  yellow  skin  are  all  the  faculties  and  the  possibilities  of  a 
human  soul,  to  grasp  the  great  thought  that  the  Chinese  is  not 
only  a  man,  but  our  brother  man,  made  like  ourselves  in  the 
image  of  God.  Let  us  have  the  charity  which  sees  beneath  all 
external  peculiarities  our  common  humanity,  which  leads  us  to 
respect  a  man  because  he  is  a  man  ;  which,  no  matter  what 
complexion  he  may  have,  no  matter  where  he  lives,  no  matter 
to  what  degradation  he  has  fallen,  will  take  him  by  the  hand 
and  endeavour  to  elevate  him  to  a  higher  plane  of  life.  For 
him  we  need  an  enthusiasm  for  humanity  which  shall  not  be  a 

1  George  Eliot. 


34  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

sentimental  rhetoric,  but  a  catholic,  throbbing  love,  remember- 
ing that  he  is 

"  Heir  of  the  same  inheritance, 
Child  of  the  self-same  God, 
He  hath  but  stumbled  in  the  path 
We  have  in  weakness  trod." 

Ruskin  reminds  us  that  the  filthy  mud  from  the  street  of  a 
manufacturing  town  is  composed  of  clay,  sand,  soot  and  water ; 
that  the  clay  may  be  purified  into  the  radiance  of  the  sapphire  ; 
that  the  sand  may  be  developed  into  the  beauty  of  the  opal ;  that 
the  soot  may  be  crystallized  into  the  glory  of  the  diamond  and 
that  the  water  may  be  changed  into  a  star  of  snow.     So  man  in 
Asia  as  well  as  in  America  may,  by  the  transforming  power  of 
God's  Spirit,  be  ennobled  into  the  kingly  dignity  of  divine  son- 
ship.     We  shall  get  along  best  with  the  Chinese  if  we  remem- 
ber that  he  is  a  human  being  like  ourselves,  responsive  to  kind- 
ness, appreciative  of  justice  and  capable  of  moral  transforma- 
tion under  the  influence  of  the  Gospel.     He  differs  from  us  not 
in  the  fundamental  things  that  make  for  manhood,  but  only  in 
the  superficial  things  that  are  the  result  of  environment.    From 
this  view-point,  we  can  say  with  Shakespeare  : — 

"  There  is  some  sort  of  goodness  in  things  evil, 
Would  men  observingly  distil  it  out." 

Those  who  are  wont  to  refer  so  contemptuously  to  the  Chi- 
nese might  profitably  recall  that  when,  in  Dickens'  "  Christmas 
Carol,"  the  misanthropic  Scrooge  says  of  the  poor  and  suff'er- 
ing  :  "  If  he  be  like  to  die,  he  had  better  do  it  and  decrease 
the  surplus  population,"— the  ghost  sternly  replies  :— 

"  Man,  if  man  you  be  at  heart,  not  adamant,  forbear  that  wicked  cant 
until  you  have  discovered  what  the  surplus  is  and  where  it  is.  Will  you 
decide  what  men  shall  live,  what  men  shall  die?  It  may  be  that  in  the 
sight  of  heaven,  you  are  more  worthless  and  less  fit  to  live  than  millions 
like  this  poor  man's  child.  Ah,  God  !  to  hear  the  insect  on  the  leaf  pro- 
nouncing on  the  too  much  life  among  his  hungry  brothers  in  the  dust !  " 


Ill 

ATTITUDE   TOWARDS  FOREIGNERS— CHARACTER 
AND  ACHIEVEMENTS 

TO  understand  China's  attitude  towards  foreigners,  the 
following  considerations  must  be  borne  in  mind  :  — 
First,  the  conservative  temperament  of  the  Chinese. 
It  is  true  but  misleading,  to  say  that  they  have  "no  word  or 
written  character  for  patriotism,  but  150  ways  of  writing  the 
characters  for  good  luck  and  long  life. ' '  For  while  the  Chi- 
nese may  have  little  love  for  country,  they  have  an  intense  de- 
votion to  their  own  customs.  For  nearly  5,000  years,  while 
other  empires  have  risen,  flourished  and  fallen,  they  have  lived 
apart,  sufficient  unto  themselves,  cherishing  their  own  ideals, 
plodding  along  their  well-worn  paths,  ignorant  of  or  indifferent 
to  the  progress  of  the  Western  world,  mechanically  memorizing 
dead  classics,  and  standing  still  comparatively  amid  the  tre- 
mendous onrush  of  modern  civilization,  I  say  comparatively 
still,  for  if  we  carefully  study  Chinese  history,  we  shall  find 
that  this  vast  nation  has  not  been  so  inert  as  we  have  long  sup- 
posed. The  very  revolutions  and  internal  commotions  of  all 
kinds  through  which  China  has  passed  would  have  prevented 
mere  inertia.  But  when  we  compare  these  movements  and  the 
changes  that  they  have  wrought  with  the  kaleidoscopic  trans- 
formations in  Europe  and  America,  China  appears  the  most 
stationary  of  nations.  She  has  moved  less  in  centuries  than 
western  peoples  have  in  decades.  The  restless  Anglo-Saxon  is 
alternately  irritated  and  awed  by  this  massive  solidity,  not  to 
say  stolidity.  There  is,  after  all,  something  impressive  about 
it,  the  impressiveness  of  a  mighty  glacier  which  moves,  indeed, 

35 


36  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

but  so  slowly  and  majestically  that  the  duration  of  an  ordinary 
nation's  life  appears  insignificant  as  compared  with  the  almost 
timeless  majesty  of  the  Chinese  Empire. 

Second,  the  vastness  of  China.  Her  territory  and  popula- 
tion are  so  enormous  that  her  people  found  sufficient  scope  for 
their  energies  within  their  own  borders.  They  therefore  felt 
independent  of  outsiders.  The  typical  European  nation  is  so 
limited  in  area  and  is  so  near  to  equally  civilized  and  powerful 
peoples  that  it  could  not  if  it  would  live  unto  itself.  The  situa- 
tion of  most  nations  forces  them  into  relations  with  others. 
But  China  had  a  third  of  the  human  race  and  a  tenth  of  the 
habitable  globe  entirely  to  herself,  with  no  neighbours  who  had 
anything  that  she  really  cared  for.  It  was  inevitable,  therefore, 
that  a  naturally  conservative  people  should  become  a  self-cen- 
tred and  self-satisfied  people. 

Third,  the  character  of  adjacent  nations.  None  of  them 
were  equal  to  the  Chinese  in  civilization  and  learning,  while  in 
territory  and  population,  they  were  relatively  insignificant. 
Even  Japan,  by  far  the  most  powerful  of  them,  has  only  a  tenth 
of  China's  population,  while  her  remarkable  progress  in  intelli- 
gence and  power  is  a  matter  of  less  than  a  couple  generations. 
Until  recently,  indeed,  Japan  was  as  backward  as  China  and 
was  not  ashamed  to  receive  many  of  her  ideas  from  her  larger 
neighbour,  as  the  number  of  Chinese  characters  in  the  Japanese 
language  plainly  show.  As  for  China's  other  neighbours,  who 
were  they?  Weak  nations  which  abjectly  sent  tribute  by  com- 
missioners who  grovelled  before  the  august  Emperor  of  the 
Middle  Kingdom,  or  barbarous  tribes  which  the  Chinese  re- 
garded about  as  Americans  regard  the  aboriginal  Indians. 
Gibson  translates  the  following  passage  from  a  Chinese  histor- 
ian as  illustrative  at  once  of  China's  haughty  contempt  of  out- 
siders and  of  her  reasons  for  it : 

"  The  former  kings  in  measuring  out  the  land  put  the  Imperial  territory 
in  the  centre.  Inside  was  the  Chinese  Empire,  and  outside  were  the  bar- 
barous nations.     The  barbarians  are  covetous  and  greedy  of  gain.     Their 


Attitude  Towards  Foreigners  37 

hair  hangs  down  over  their  bodies,  and  their  coats  are  buttoned  on  the 
left  side.  They  have  human  faces,  but  the  hearts  of  beasts.  They  are 
distinguished  from  the  natives  of  the  Empire  both  by  their  manners  and 
tlieir  dress.  They  differ  both  in  their  customs  and  their  food,  and  in  lan- 
guage they  are  utterly  unintelhgible.  .  .  .  On  this  account  the  ancient 
sage  kings  treated  them  like  birds  and  beasts.  They  did  not  contract 
treaties,  nor  did  they  attack  them.  To  form  a  treaty  is  simply  to  spend 
treasure  and  to  be  deceived ;  to  attack  them  is  simply  to  wear  out  the 
troops  and  provoke  raids.  .  .  .  Thus  the  outer  are  not  to  be  brought  in- 
side. They  must  be  held  at  a  distance,  avoiding  familiarity.  ...  If 
they  show  a  leaning  towards  right  principles  and  present  tributary  offer- 
ings, they  should  be  treated  with  a  yielding  etiquette  ;  but  bridling  and 
repression  must  never  be  relaxed  for  conforming  to  circumstance.  Such 
was  the  constant  principle  of  the  sage  monarchs  in  ruling  and  controlling 
the  barbarian  tribes." 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  when  foreigners 
from  the  distant  West  sought  to  force  their  way  into 
China,  the  Chinese,  knowing  nothing  of  the  countries 
from  which  they  came,  should  have  regarded  them  in  accord- 
ance with  their  traditional  belief  and  policy  regarding  the  in- 
feriority of  all  outsiders. 

The  resultant  difficulty  was  intensified  by  the  in- 
difference, to  use  no  harsher  term,  of  the  foreigner  to 
the  fact  that  the  Chinese  are  a  very  ceremonious  people,  ex- 
tremely punctilious  in  all  social  relations  and  disposed  to  re- 
gard a  breach  of  etiquette  as  a  cardinal  sin.  "Face"  is  a 
national  institution  which  must  be  preserved  at  all  hazards. 
No  one  can  get  along  with  the  Chinese  who  does  not  respect  it. 

"It  is  an  integral  part  of  both  Chinese  theory  and  practice  that  realities 
are  of  much  less  importance  than  appearances.  If  the  latter  can  be 
saved,  the  former  may  be  altogether  surrendered.  This  is  the  essence  of 
that  mysterious  '  face  '  of  which  we  are  never  done  hearing  in  China. 
The  line  of  Pope  might  be  the  Chinese  national  motto :  '  Act  well  your 
part,  there  all  the  honour  lies  ';  not,  be  it  observed,  doing  well  what  is  to  be 
done,  but  consummate  acting,  contriving  to  convey  the  appearance  of  a 
thing  or  a  fact,  whatever  the  realities  may  be.     This  is  Chinese  high  art ; 


38  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

this  is  success.  It  is  self-respect,  and  it  involves  and  implies  the  respect 
of  others.  It  is,  in  a  word,  '  face.'  The  preservation  of  «  face  '  fre- 
quently requires  that  one  should  behave  in  an  arbitrary  and  violent  man- 
ner merely  to  emphasize  his  protests  against  the  course  of  current  events. 
He  or  she  must  fly  into  a  violent  rage,  he  or  she  must  use  reviling  and 
perhaps  imprecatory  language,  else  it  will  not  be  evident  to  the  spectators 
of  the  drama,  in  which  he  is  at  the  moment  acting,  that  he  is  aware  just 
what  ought  to  be  done  by  a  person  in  his  precise  situation;  and  then  he 
will  have  '  no  way  to  descend  from  the  stage,'  or  in  other  words,  he  will 
have  lost  •  face.' "  ^ 

Even  in  death  this  remains  the  ruling  passion.  Chi- 
nese coffins  require  much  wood  and  are  an  expensive 
burden  in  this  land  where  timber  is  scarce,  for  Confucius  said 
that  a  coffin  should  be  five  inches  thick.  So  the  poorer  Chi- 
nese thriftily  meet  this  requirement  by  making  the  sides  and 
ends  hollow  !      Thus  "  face  "  is  saved. 

In  these  circumstances,  it  was  very  important  that  the  rela- 
tions of  Europeans  to  China  should  be  characterized  not  only 
by  justice  but  by  tact  and  at  least  decent  respect  for  the  feel- 
ings and  customs  of  the  people.  The  chief  cause  of  China's 
hostility  to  foreigners  undoubtedly  lies  in  the  notorious  and 
often  contemptuous  disregard  of  these  things  by  the  majority 
of  the  white  men  who  have  entered  China  and  by  the  Govern- 
ments which  have  backed  them. 

There  is  much  in  the  Chinese  that  is  worthy  of  our  respect- 
ful recognition.  Multitudes  are  indeed,  stolid  and  ignorant, 
but  multitudes,  too,  have  strong,  intelligent  features.  Thou- 
sands of  children  have  faces  as  bright  and  winning  as  those  of 
American  children.  More  strongly  than  ever  do  I  feel  that 
Europe  and  America  have  not  done  justice  to  the  character  of 
the  Chinese.  I  do  not  refer  to  the  bigoted  and  corrupt  Manchu 
officials,  or  to  the  lawless  barbarians  who,  like  the  "  lewd  fellows 
of  the  baser  sort  "  in  other  lands,  are  ever  ready  to  follow  the 
leadership  of  a  demagogue.     But  I  refer  to  the  Chinese  people 

1  Smith,  "  Rex  Christus,"  pp.  107, 108. 


Attitude  Towards  Foreigners  39 

as  a  whole.  Their  view-point  is  so  radically  different  from 
ours  that  we  have  often  harshly  misjudged  them,  when  the  real 
trouble  has  lain  in  our  failure  to  understand  them. 

Let  us  be  free  enough  from  prejudice  and  passion  to  respect 
a  people  whose  national  existence  has  survived  the  mutations 
of  a  definitely  known  historic  period  of  thirty-seven  centuries 
and  of  an  additional  legendary  period  that  runs  back  no  man 
knows  how  far  into  the  haze  of  a  hoary  antiquity  ;  who  are 
frugal,  patient,  industrious  and  respectful  to  parents,  as  we  are 
not ;  whose  astronomers  made  accurate  recorded  observations 
200  years  before  Abraham  left  Ur  ;  who  used  firearms  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Christian  era ;  who  first  grew  tea,  manufac- 
tured gunpowder,  made  pottery,  glue  and  gelatine  ;  who  wore 
silk  and  lived  in  houses  when  our  ancestors  wore  the  undressed 
skins  of  wild  animals  and  slept  in  caves  ;  who  invented  print- 
ing by  movable  types  500  years  before  that  art  was  known  in 
Europe  ;  who  discovered  the  principles  of  the  mariner's  com- 
pass without  which  the  oceans  could  not  be  crossed,  conceived 
the  idea  of  artificial  inland  waterways  and  dug  a  canal  600 
miles  long  ;  who  made  mountain  roads  which,  in  the  opinion  of 
Dr.  S.  Wells  Williams,  "  when  new  probably  equalled  in  engi- 
neering and  construction  anything  of  the  kind  ever  built  by 
Romans;  "  and  who  invented  the  arch  to  which  our  modern 
architecture  is  so  greatly  indebted. 

In  the  Great  Bell  Temple  two  miles  from  Peking  is  one  of 
the  wonderful  bells  of  the  world.  It  is  fourteen  feet  high, 
thirty-four  feet  in  circumference  at  the  rim,  nine  inches  thick 
and  weighs  120,000  pounds.  It  is  literally  covered  inside  and 
out  with  Chinese  characters  consisting  of  extracts  from  the 
sacred  writings,  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Wherry,  who  is  an 
expert  in  the  Chinese  language,  says  that  there  is  "  not  one 
imperfect  character  among  them."  The  bell  when  struck  by 
the  big  wooden  clapper  emits  a  deep  musical  note  that  can  be 
heard  for  miles.  Such  a  magnificent  bell  vividly  illustrates 
the  stage  of  civilization  reached  by  the  Chinese  while  Europe 


40  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

was  comparatively  barbarous,  for  the  bell  was  cast  as  far  back 
as  1406  in  the  reign  of  Yung-loh,  and  the  present  temple  build- 
ings were  erected  about  it  in  1578.  The  Germans  began  using 
paper  in  1190,  but  Sven  Hedin  found  Chinese  paper  1,650 
years  old  and  there  is  evidence  that  paper  was  in  common  use 
by  the  Chinese  150  years  before  Christ.  Until  a  few  hundred 
years  ago,  European  business  was  conducted  on  the  basis  of 
coin  or  barter.  But  long  before  that,  the  Chinese  had  banks 
and  issued  bills  of  exchange.  There  has  recently  been  placed 
in  the  British  Museum  a  bank-note  issued  by  Hung-Wu,  Em- 
peror of  China,  in  1368. 

The  Chinese  exalt  learning  and,  alone  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth,  make  scholarship  a  test  of  fitness  for  official  position. 
True,  that  scholarship  moves  along  narrow  lines  of  Confucian 
classics,  but  surely  such  knowledge  is  a  higher  qualification  for 
office  than  the  brute  strength  which  for  centuries  gave  prece- 
dence among  our  ancestors.  A  Chinese  writer  explains  as  fol- 
lows the  gradations  in  relative  worth  as  they  are  esteemed  by 
his  countrymen  :  "  First  the  scholar  :  because  mind  is  superior 
to  wealth,  and  it  is  the  intellect  that  distinguishes  man  above 
the  lower  orders  of  beings,  and  enables  him  to  provide  food 
and  raiment  and  shelter  for  himself  and  for  other  creatures. 
Second,  the  farmer  :  because  the  mind  cannot  act  without  the 
body,  and  the  body  cannot  exist  without  food,  so  that  farming 
is  essential  to  the  existence  of  man,  especially  in  civilized 
society.  Third,  the  mechanic  :  because  next  to  food,  shelter 
is  a  necessity,  and  the  man  who  builds  a  house  comes  next  in 
honour  to  the  man  who  provides  food.  Fourth,  the  trades- 
man :  because,  as  society  increases  and  its  wants  are  multi- 
plied, men  to  carry  on  exchange  and  barter  become  a  neces- 
sity, and  so  the  merchant  comes  into  existence.  His  occupation 
— shaving  both  sides,  the  producer  and  consumer — tempts  him 
to  act  dishonestly  ;  hence  his  low  grade.  Fifth,  the  soldier 
stands  last  and  lowest  in  the  list,  because  his  business  is  to 
destroy  and  not  to  build  up  society.     He  consumes  what  others 


Attitude  Towards  Foreigners  41 

produce,  but  produces  nothing  himself  that  can  benefit  man- 
kind.     He  is,  perhaps,  a  necessary  evil,"  ' 

While  the  Government  of  China  is  a  paternal  despotism  in 
form  and  while  it  is  always  weak  and  corrupt  and  often  cruel 
and  tyrannical  in  practice,  nevertheless  there  is  a  larger  measure 
of  individual  freedom  than  might  be  supposed.  "  There  are 
no  passports,  no  restraints  on  liberty,  no  frontiers,  no  caste 
prejudices,  no  food  scruples,  no  sanitary  measures,  no  laws 
except  popular  customs  and  criminal  statutes.  China  is  in 
many  senses  one  vast  republic,  in  which  personal  restraints 
have  no  existence."  ^ 

We  must  not  form  our  opinion  from  the  Chinese  whom  we 
see  in  the  United  States.  True,  most  of  them  are  kindly, 
patient  and  industrious,  while  some  are  highly  intelligent. 
But,  with  comparatively  few  exceptions,  they  are  from  the 
lower  classes  of  a  single  province  of  Kwan-tung — Cantonese 
coolies.  The  Chinese  might  as  fairly  form  their  opinion  of 
Americans  from  our  day-labourers.  But  there  are  able  men  in 
the  Celestial  Empire.  Bishop  Andrews  returned  from  China 
to  characterize  the  Chinese  as  "a  people  of  brains."  When 
Viceroy  Li  Hung  Chang  visited  this  country,  all  who  met  him 
unhesitatingly  pronounced  him  a  great  man.  The  New  York 
TribiiJie  characterizes  the  late  Liu  Kan  Ji,  Viceroy  of  Nanking, 
as  a  man  who  "rendered  inestimable  services  to  China  and  to 
the  whole  world,"  "  a  man  of  action,  who  acted  with  a  strong 
hand  and  masterful  leadership  and  at  the  same  time  with  a 
justice  and  a  generosity  that  made  him  at  once  feared,  respected 
and  loved." 

After  General  Grant's  tour  around  the  world,  he  told  Senator 
Stewart  that  the  most  astonishing  thing  which  he  had  seen  was 
that  wherever  the  Chinese  had  come  into  competition  with  the 
Jew,  the  Chinese  had  driven  out  the  Jew.  We  know  the  per- 
sistence of  the  Jew,  that  he  has  held  his  own  against  every 

'  Quoted  by  Beach,  "  Dawn  on  the  Hills  of  T'ang,"  pp.  45,  46. 
2E.  H.  Parker,  ••China." 


42  New  Forces  In  Old  China 

other  people.  Despite  the  fact  that  he  has  no  home  and  no 
Government,  that  he  has  been  ridiculed  and  persecuted  by  all 
men,  that  everywhere  he  is  an  alien  in  race,  country  and  re- 
ligion, he  has  laboured  on,  patiently,  resolutely,  distancing 
every  rival,  surmounting  every  obstacle,  compelling  even  his 
enemies  to  acknowledge  his  shrewdness  and  his  determination, 
till  to-day  in  Russia,  in  Austria,  in  Germany,  in  England,  the 
Jew  is  bitterly  conceded  to  be  master  in  the  editorial  chair,  at 
the  bar,  in  the  universities,  in  the  counting-house  and  in  the 
banking  office ;  while  the  proudest  of  monarchs  will  undertake 
no  enterprise  requiring  large  expenditure  until  he  is  assured  of 
the  support  of  the  keen-eyed,  swarthy-visaged  men  who  control 
the  sinews  of  war.  Generations  of  exclusion  from  agriculture 
and  the  mechanical  arts  and  of  devotion  to  commerce,  have 
developed  and  inbred  in  the  Jew  a  marvellous  facility  for  trade. 
And  yet  this  race,  which  has  so  abundantly  demonstrated  its 
ability  to  cope  with  the  Greek,  the  Slav  and  the  Teuton,  finds 
itself  outreached  in  cunning,  outworn  in  persistence  and  over- 
matched in  strength  by  an  olive-complexioned,  almond-eyed 
fellow  with  felt  shoes,  baggy  trousers,  loose  tunic,  round  cap 
and  swishing  queue,  who  represents  such  swarming  myriads 
that  the  mind  is  confused  in  the  attempt  to  comprehend  the 
enormous  number.  The  canny  Scotchman  and  the  shrewd 
Yankee  are  alike  discomfited  by  the  Chinese.  Those  who  do 
not  believe  it  should  ask  the  American  and  European  traders 
who  are  being  crowded  out  of  Saigon,  Shanghai,  Bangkok, 
Singapore,  Penang,  Batavia  and  Manila.  In  many  of  the  ports 
of  Asia  outside  of  China,  the  Chinese  have  shown  themselves 
to  be  successful  colonizers,  able  to  meet  competition,  so  that 
to-day  they  own  the  most  valuable  property  and  control  the 
bulk  of  the  trade.  It  is  true  that  the  Chinese  are  inordinately 
conceited  ;  but  shades  of  the  Fourth  of  July  orator,  screams  of 
the  American  eagle  !  it  requires  considerable  self-possession  in 
a  Yankee  to  criticize  any  one  else  on  the  planet  for  conceit. 
The  Chinese  have  not,  at  least,  padded  a  census  to  make  the 


Attitude  Towards  Foreigners  43 

world  believe  that  they  are  greater  than  they  really  are.  In 
June,  1903,  the  same  New  York  newspaper  that  gave  the  hor- 
rible details  of  the  burning  of  a  negro  by  an  American  mob 
within  thirty  miles  of  Philadelphia  announced  that  a  Chinese, 
Chung  Hui  Wang,  had  taken  the  highest  honours  in  the  gradu- 
ating class  at  Yale  University.  Another  New  York  journal,  in 
commenting  on  the  fact  that  Chao  Chu,  son  of  the  former 
Chinese  minister,  Wu  Ting  Fang,  was  graduated  in  1904  at 
the  Atlantic  City  High  School  as  the  valedictorian  of  a  class  of 
thirty-one,  remarked : 

<'  At  every  commencement  there  are  honours  enough  to  go  around,  and 
those  won  by  the  Celestial  contestants  will  not  be  begrudged  them.  Yet 
it  is  not  exactly  flattering  to  smart  American  youth  to  realize  that  repre- 
sentatives of  an  effete  civilization  after  a  few  years'  acquaintance  with 
Western  ways  can  meet  our  home  talent  on  its  own  ground  and  carry  off 
the  prizes  of  scholarship." 

A  British  consular  official,  who  spent  many  years  in  China  and 
who  speaks  the  language,  declares  that  in  his  experience  of  the 
Chinese  their  fidelity  is  extraordinary,  their  sense  of  responsi- 
bility in  positions  of  trust  very  keen,  and  that  they  have  a 
very  high  standard  of  gratitude  and  honour.  "  I  cannot 
recall  a  case,"  he  says,  "where  any  Chinese  friend  has  left 
me  in  the  lurch  or  played  me  a  dirty  trick,  and  few  of  us 
can  say  the  same  of  our  own  colleagues  and  countrymen." 
The  Hon.  Chester  Holcombe,  who  quotes  this,  adds — "  The 
writer,  after  years  of  experience  and  intimate  acquaintance 
with  all  classes  of  Chinese  from  every  part  of  the  Empire,  is 
convinced  that  the  characterization  of  the  race  as  thus  given 
by  those  who  at  least  are  not  over-friendly  does  it  only  scant 
justice."  ^ 

Many  quote  against  the  Chinese  the  familiar  lines  — 

" for  ways  that  are  dark 


And  for  tricks  that  are  vain, 
The  heathen  Chinee  is  peculiar." 

1  The  Outlook,  February  13,  1904. 


44  New  Forces  In  Old  China 

But  whoever  reads  the  whole  poem  will  see  the  force  of  the 
London  Spectator's  opinion  that  it  is  a  "satire  of  the  Amer- 
ican selfishness  which  is  the  main  strength  of  the  cry  against  the 
cheap  labour  of  the  Chinese,"  and  that  "  it  would  not  be  easy 
for  a  moderately  intelligent  man  to  avoid  seeing  that  Mr.  Bret 
Harte  wished  to  delineate  the  Chinese  simply  as  beating  the 
Yankee  at  his  own  evil  game,  and  to  delineate  the  Yankee  as 
not  at  all  disposed  to  take  offense  at  the  **  cheap  labour  "  of  his 
Oriental  rival,  until  he  discovered  that  he  could  not  cheat  the 
cheap  labourer  half  so  completely  as  the  cheap  labourer  could 
cheat  him." 

It  is  common  for  people  to  praise  the  Japanese  and  to  sneer 
at  the  Chinese.  All  honour  to  the  Japanese  for  their  splendid 
achievements.  With  marvellous  celerity  they  have  adopted 
many  modern  ideas  and  inventions.  They  are  worthy  of  the 
respect  they  receive.  But  those  who  have  made  a  close  study 
of  both  peoples  unhesitatingly  assert  that  the  Chinese  have 
more  solid  elements  of  permanence  and  power.  The  Japanese 
have  the- quickness,  the  enthusiasm,  the  intelligence  of  the 
French  ;  but  the  Chinese  unite  to  equal  intelligence  the  plod- 
ding persistence  of  the  Germans,  and  the  old  fable  of  the  tor- 
toise and  the  hare  is  as  true  of  nations  as  it  is  of  individuals. 
Unquestionably,  the  Chinese  are  the  most  virile  race  in  Asia. 
"  Wherever  a  Chinese  can  get  a  foot  of  ground  and  a  quart  of 
water  he  will  make  something  grow."  Colquhoun  quotes 
Richthoven  as  saying  that  "  among  the  various  races  of  man- 
kind, the  Chinese  is  the  only  one  which  in  all  climates,  the 
hottest  and  the  coldest,  is  capableof  great  and  lasting  activity." 
And  he  states  as  his  own  opinion:  "  She  has  all  the  elements 
to  build  up  a  great  living  force.  One  thing  alone  is  wanted — 
the  will,  the  directing  power.  That  supplied,  there  are  to  be 
found  in  abundance  in  China  the  capacity  to  carry  out,  the 
brains  to  plan,  the  hands  to  work." 


IV 

A  TYPICAL  PROVINCE 

SHANTUNG  is  not  only  one  of  the  greatest,  but  it  is  in 
many  respects  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  all  the 
provinces  of  China.  Its  length  east  and  west  is  about 
543  miles  and  in  area  it  is  nearly  as  large  as  the  whole  of  New 
England.  The  name,  Shantung,  signifies  "the  sun  shining 
through  the  trees,"  but  tillable  land  has  become  so  valu- 
able that  trees  are  now  comparatively  few  save  in  the  villages 
and  temples  and  about  the  groves  of  the  rich.  But  for  the 
most  part,  Shantung  resembles  the  great  prairie  regions  of  the 
western  part  of  the  United  States,  broken  by  occasional  ranges 
of  hills  and  low  mountains.  The  soil  is  generally  fertile, 
though  in  the  southwestern  part  I  found  some  stony  regions 
where  the  soil  is  thin  and  poor.  South  of  Chinan-fu  one  finds 
the  loess,  a  light  friable  earth  which  yields  so  easily  to  wheel 
and  hoof  and  wind  and  water  that  the  stream  of  travel  through 
successive  generations  has  worn  deep  cuts  in  which  the  traveller 
may  journey  for  hours  and  sometimes  for  days  so  far  below  the 
general  level  of  the  country  that  he  can  see  nothing  but  the 
sides  of  the  cut  and  in  turn  cannot  be  seen  by  others.  The 
character  of  the  soil  and  the  power  of  the  wind  and  rain  have 
combined  not  only  to  excavate  these  long  passages,  but  to  cast 
up  innumerable  mounds  and  hills,  often  of  such  fantastic  shapes 
that  one  is  reminded  of  the  quaint  and  curious  formations  in 
the  Bad  Lands  of  the  Missouri,  though  the  loess  hillocks  lack 
the  brilliant  colouring  of  the  American  formations. 

Throughout  the  province  as  a  whole,  almost  every  possible 
square  rod  of  ground  is  carefully  cultivated  by  the  industrious 
people,  so  that  in  the  summer  time  the  whole  country  appears 

45 


46  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

to  be  continuous  gardens  and  farms  dotted  with  innumerable 
villages.  Wheat  appears  to  be  the  chief  crop  and,  as  in  the 
Dakotas,  the  entire  landscape  seems  to  be  one  splendid  field  of 
waving,  yellowing  grain.  But  early  in  June  the  wheat  disap- 
pears as  if  by  magic,  for  the  whole  population  apparently,  men, 
women  and  children,  turn  out  and  harvest  it  with  amazing 
quickness  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  everything  is  done  by  hand. 
Men  and  donkeys  carry  the  grain  to  smooth,  hard  ground 
spaces,  where  it  is  threshed  by  a  heavy  roller  stone  drawn  by  a 
donkey  or  an  ox  or  by  men,  and  several  times  I  saw  it  drawn 
by  women.  Then  it  is  winnowed  by  being  pitched  into  the 
air  for  the  wind  to  drive  out  the  feathery  chaff.  The  methods 
vividly  illustrate  the  first  Psalm  and  other  Bible  references — 
gleaning,  muzzling  "  the  ox  when  he  treadeth  out  the  corn," 
the  threshing  floor  and  "  the  chaff  which  the  wind  driveth 
away. ' ' 

One  might  suppose  that  after  the  wheat  harvest,  stubble 
fields  would  be  much  in  evidence.  But  they  are  not,  for  the 
millet  promptly  appears.  It  is  hardly  noticeable  when  the 
wheat  is  standing.  But  it  grows  rapidly,  and  as  soon  as  the 
wheat  is  out  of  the  way,  it  covers  great  areas  with  its  refreshing 
green,  looking  in  its  earlier  stages  like  young  corn.  It  is  of 
two  varieties.  One  is  a  little  higher  than  wheat,  with  hanging 
head  and  a  small  yellow  grain.  The  other  is  the  kao-liang, 
which  grows  to  a  height  of  about  twelve  feet.  When  small,  it 
is  thinned  out  to  one  stalk  or  sometimes  two  in  a  hill  so  that  it 
can  develop  freely.  This  stalk  is  to  the  common  people  almost 
as  serviceable  as  the  bamboo  to  tropical  dwellers.  It  is  used 
for  fences,  ceilings,  walls  and  many  other  purposes.  The  grain 
of  the  two  varieties  is  the  staple  food,  few  but  the  richer 
classes  eating  rice  which  is  not  raised  in  the  north  and  is  high 
in  price.  A  third  species  of  millet,  shu-shu,  is  used  chiefly 
for  distilling  a  whiskey  that  is  largely  used  but  almost  always 
at  home  and  at  night  so  that  little  drunkenness  is  seen  by  the 
traveller. 


A  RUT  IN  THE  LOESS  REGION 


A  Typical  Province  47 

Fuel  is  very  scarce,  trees  being  few  and  coal,  though 
abundant,  not  being  mined  to  any  extent.  So  the  people  cook 
with  stalks,  straw,  roots,  etc.,  and  in  winter  pile  on  additional 
layers  of  wadded  cotton  garments.  Chinese  houses  are  not 
heated  as  ours  are,  though  the  flues  from  the  cooking  fire,  run- 
ning under  the  brick  kang,  give  some  heat,  too  much  at  times. 

Silk  is  produced  in  large  quantities  and  mulberry  trees  are 
so  common  as  to  add  greatly  to  the  beauty  of  the  country.  As 
the  cocoons  cannot  be  left  on  the  trees  for  fear  of  thieves,  the 
leaves  are  picked  off  and  taken  into  houses  where  the  worms 
are  kept. 

Poppy  fields,  too,  are  numerous.  The  flowers  are  gloriously 
beautiful.  I  often  saw  men  gathering  the  opium  in  the  early 
morning.  After  the  blossoms  fall  off,  the  pod  is  slit  and  the 
whitish  juice,  oozing  out,  is  carefully  scraped  ofl".  High  hills 
rising  to  low  mountains  add  beauty  to  the  western  part  of  Shan- 
tung, while  the  more  numerous  trees  scattered  over  the  fields  as 
well  as  in  the  villages  make  extensive  regions  look  like  vast 
parks. 

The  people  are  among  the  finest  types  of  the  Chinese, 
tall,  strong  and,  in  many  instances,  of  marked  intellectual 
power.  To  the  Chinese,  Shantung  is  the  most  sacred  of  the 
provinces,  for  here  were  born  the  two  mighty  sages,  Confucius 
and  Mencius. 

Politically,  the  Province  is  divided  into  ten  prefectures,  each 
under  a  prefectural  magistrate,  called  a  Chik-fu,  and  with  a 
capital  which  has  the  termination  *'  fu."  I-chow-fu,  for  example, 
is  a  prefectural  city.  Each  fu  is  subdivided  into  ten  districts 
under  a  district  magistrate  or  Chich-hsien,  the  capital,  or  county 
seat  as  we  should  call  it,  having  the  termination  "hsien  "  or 
"  hien ' '  as  for  example  Wei-hsien.  There  are  108  of  these  hsien 
cities.  Between  the  fu  and  the  hsien  cities  are  a  few  chou  cities 
as  Chining-chou.  They  are  practically  small  fus,  Chining-chou 
having  four  hsiens  under  it.  The  magistrate  is  called  a  Chou- 
kwan  and  is  responsible  directly  to  a  Tao-tai  who  is  an  official 


48  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

between  the  prefectural  magistrate  or  Chik-fu  and  the  Gov- 
ernor. There  are  three  Tao-tais  in  the  province.  At  the 
provincial  capitol  are  the  treasurer  or  Fan-tai,  the  Nieh-tai  or 
judge,  the  Hueh-tai  or  commissioner  of  education  and  the  salt 
commissioner,  Yuen-yun.  These  are  all  high  officials.  Over 
all  is  the  Governor,  virtually  a  monarch  subject  only  to  the 
nominal  supervision  of  the  Imperial  Government  at  Peking. 
He  is  appointed  and  may  at  any  time  be  removed  by  the 
Emperor,  but  during  his  tenure  of  office  he  has  almost  un- 
limited power. 

My  tour  of  China  included  two  interesting  months  in  this 
great  province.  As  I  approached  Chefoo  on  the  steamer  from 
Korea,  I  was  impressed  by  the  beauty  of  the  scene.  The  water 
was  smooth  and  sparkling  in  the  bright  spring  sunshine.  The 
harbour  is  exceptionally  lovely.  The  shore  lines  are  irregular, 
terminating  in  a  high  promonotory  on  which  are  situated  the 
buildings  of  the  various  consulates.  To  the  right,  as  the 
traveller  faces  the  city,  is  the  business  section  with  its  wharves 
and  well-constructed  commercial  buildings,  while  on  the  left  is 
the  wide  curve  of  a  fine  beach  on  which  front  the  foreign  hotel 
and  the  handsome  buildings  of  the  China  Inland  Mission. 
Beyond  the  city,  rises  a  noble  hill  on  the  slopes  of  which  stand 
the  buildings  of  the  Presbyterian  Mission.  From  the  water, 
Chefoo  is  one  of  the  most  charming  cities  in  all  China. 

Big,  lusty  Chinese  in  their  wide,  clumsy  boats  called  sam- 
pans, swarmed  in  the  harbour.  Sculling  alongside,  the  boat- 
man caught  the  rail  of  the  steamer  with  his  boat-hook  and  with 
the  agility  of  a  monkey  scrambled  up  the  long  pole,  dropped  it 
into  the  water  and  began  to  hustle  for  business.  The  babel  of 
voices  bidding  for  passengers  was  like  the  tumult  of  Niagara 
hack-drivers,  but  we  were  so  fortunate  as  to  be  met  by  Dr.  W. 
F.  Faries  and  the  Rev.  W.  O.  Elterich  of  the  Presbyterian 
Mission  and  under  their  skillful  guidance,  we  were  soon  taken 
ashore. 

A  closer  view  of  the  Chinese  city  proved  less  attractive  than 


A  Typical  Province  49 

the  captivating  one  fronfi  tlie  harbour.  The  population  long 
ago  over-ran  the  limits  of  the  old  city  so  that  to-day  most  of 
the  people  are  outside  the  walls.  Within  those  ancient  battle- 
ments, the  streets  are  narrow  and  crooked,  while  the  filth  is  in- 
describable. The  visitor  who  wishes  to  see  something  of  the 
work  and  to  enjoy  the  hospitality  of  the  noble  company  of  Pres- 
byterian missionaries  on  Temple  Hill  must  either  pass  through 
that  reeking  mess  or  go  around  it.  There  is,  after  all,  not 
much  choice  in  the  routes,  for  the  Chinese  population  outside 
the  walls  has  simply  squatted  there  without  much  order,  and 
the  corkscrew  streets  are  not  only  thronged  with  people  and 
donkeys  and  mules,  but  malodorous  with  ditches  through  which 
all  the  nastiness  of  the  crowded  habitations  trickles.  Why 
pestilence  does  not  carry  off  the  whole  population  is  a  mystery 
to  the  visitor  from  the  West,  especially  as  he  sees  the  pools  out 
of  which  the  people  drink,  their  shores  lined  with  washerwomen 
and  the  water  dark  and  thick  with  the  dirt  of  decades.  Byron's 
words  in  "  Childe  Harold  "  are  as  true  of  Chefoo  as  of  Lisbon  : 

"  But  whoso  entereth  within  this  town, 

That,  sheening  far,  a  celestial  seems  to  be, 
Disconsolate  will  wander  up  and  down 

'Mid  many  things  unsightly  to  strange  e'e ; 
For  hut  and  palace  show  like  filthily. 

The  dingy  denizens  are  reared  in  dirt. 
No  personage  of  high  or  mean  degree 

Doth  care  for  cleanness  of  surtout,  or  shirt, 
Though  shent  with  Egypt's  plague,  unkempt,  unwashed,  unhurt !  " 

The  first  open  port  of  Shantung  was  Teng-chou-fu,  a  quaint 
old  city  on  the  far  northeastern  point  of  the  Shantung  prom- 
ontory. It  has  been  outstripped  in  importance  by  its  later 
rival,  Chefoo,  and  is  now  ignored  by  the  through  steamers  and 
seldom  visited  by  travellers.  As  the  trip  from  Chefoo  by  land 
requires  two  long  hard  days  over  a  mountain  range  and  as  time 
was  precious,  I  decided  to  go  by  water.  The  regular  coasting 
steamer  was  not  running  on  account  of  danger  from  pirates, 


^o  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

who  had  been  unusually  bold  and  murderous  in  attacking  pass- 
ing vessels.  But  I  succeeded  in  hiring  a  small  launch.  It  was 
a  trip  of  fifty-five  miles  along  the  coast  on  the  open  sea,  but  the 
weather  was  good  and  so  we  risked  it.  Several  of  the  mission- 
aries took  advantage  of  the  occasion  to  visit  friends  in  Teng- 
chou-fu  so  that  a  pleasant  little  party  was  formed. 

We  had  intended  to  start  at  7:30  A.  M.,  but  some  of  our  lug- 
gage and  chair  coolies,  who  had  been  engaged  to  take  us  from 
Temple  Hill  to  the  launch  at  6:30,  did  not  come,  and  we  had 
to  press  into  service  some  untrained  *'  boys."  Then,  our  chair 
coolies,  who  had  been  carefully  instructed  as  to  their  destination 
and  who  had  solemnly  asserted  that  they  knew  just  where  to  go, 
got  separated  from  the  others  and  calmly  took  us  to  the  Union 
Church.  We  appreciated  their  apparent  conviction  that  we 
needed  to  go  to  church,  but  we  vainly  tried  to  make  them  un- 
derstand that  we  wanted  to  go  somewhere  else.  The  delay 
would  have  become  exasperating  if  a  small  English  boy  who 
knew  Chinese  had  not  helped  us  out.  Then  the  two  coolies 
who  were  carrying  our  valises  and  the  lunch-baskets  went  an- 
other way  and  sat  down  en  route  "to  rest."  They  would 
doubtless  be  sitting  there  yet  if,  after  waiting  till  our  patience 
was  exhausted,  we  had  not  sent  men  to  find  them.  But  that  is 
Asia. 

However,  all  arrived  at  last  and  at  8:20  a.  m.  we  cast  off. 
The  day  was  glorious  and  as  the  sea  was  not  rough  enough  to 
make  any  one  ill,  we  had  a  delightful  trip  along  the  coast  with 
its  bare,  brown  hills  so  much  resembling  the  scenery  of  Cali- 
fornia. We  reached  Teng-chou-fu  at  3:15  and  that  the  pirates 
were  not  imaginary  was  evident  for  as  we  entered  the  harbour, 
they  made  a  dash  and  captured  a  juuk  less  than  a  mile  away. 
An  alarm  cannon  was  fired  and  soldiers  were  running  to  the 
beach  as  we  landed. 

While  in  Teng-chou-fu,  we  witnessed  a  pathetic  ceremony. 
There  had  been  no  rain  for  several  weeks.  The  kao-liang  was 
withering  and  the  farmers  could  not  plant  their  beans  on  the 


A  Typical   Province  51 

ground  from  which  the  winter  wheat  had  been  cut.  The  peo- 
ple had  become  alarmed  as  the  drought  continued,  and  they 
were  parading  the  streets  bearing  banners,  wearing  chaplets  of 
withered  leaves  on  their  heads  to  remind  the  gods  that  the 
vegetation  was  dying,  beating  drums  to  attract  the  attention  of 
the  god,  and  ever  and  anon  falling  on  their  knees  and  praying 
— "O  Great  Dragon!  send  us  rain."  It  was  pitiful.  This 
country  is  fertile  but  the  population  is  so  enormous  that,  in  the 
absence  of  any  manufacturing  or  mining,  the  people  even  in  the 
most  favoured  seasons  live  from  hand  to  mouth,  and  a  drought 
means  the  starvation  of  multitudes. 


A  SHENDZA  IN  SHANTUNG 

THE  spring  of  1901  was  not  the  most  propitious  time 
for  a  tour  of  the  province  of  Shantung.  It  was 
shortly  after  the  suppression  of  the  Boxer  outbreak 
and  the  country  was  still  in  an  unsettled  condition.  The 
veteran  Dr.  Hunter  Corbett,  who  had  resided  in  the  province 
for  a  generation  said,  "  We  are  living  on  a  volcano  and  we  do 
not  know  at  what  moment  another  eruption  will  occur." 
Students  returning  from  the  examinations  at  the  capitol  told  the 
people  that  the  Boxers  were  to  rise  again  and  kill  all  the  for- 
eigners and  Chinese  Christians.  The  missionaries  did  not  be- 
lieve the  report,  but  they  said  that  it  might  be  believed  by  the 
people  and  cause  a  renewal  of  agitation  as  such  rumours  the 
year  before  had  been  an  important  factor  in  inciting  the  popu- 
lace to  violence.  But  the  interior  of  this  great  province  was 
one  of  the  objective  points  of  my  tour  and  I  could  not  miss  it. 
Besides,  if  the  missionaries  could  go,  I  could.  Wives,  how- 
ever, were  resolutely  debarred.  No  woman  had  yet  ventured 
into  the  interior  and  the  authorities  refused  to  approve  their 
going.  In  case  of  trouble,  a  man  can  fight  or  run,  but  a 
woman  is  peculiarly  helpless.  Nor  could  we  forget  that  the 
Chinese  during  the  Boxer  outbreak  treated  foreign  women  who 
fell  into  their  hands  with  horrible  atrocity.  So  the  wives,  rather 
against  their  will,  remained  in  the  ports. 

Arrangements  are  apt  to  move  slowly  in  this  land  of  delibera- 
tion. The  genial  and  efficient  United  States  Consul  at  Chefoo, 
the  Hon.  John  Fowler,  joked  me  a  little  about  my  hurry  to 
start,  laughingly  remarking  that  this  was  Asia  and  not  New 
York,  and  that  I  must   not  expect  things  to  be  done  on  the 

52 


A  Shendza  in  Shantung  53 

touch  of  a  button  as  at  home.  But  finding  that  a  German 
steamer  was  to  leave  the  next  day  for  Tsing-tau,  the  starting 
point  for  the  interior,  the  energetic  missionaries  helped  me  to 
"  hustle  the  East"  to  get  off  on  it.  The  Chinese  tailor  gasped 
when  I  told  him  that  I  must  have  a  khaki  suit  by  six  the  fol- 
lowing evening,  but  when  he  learned  that  I  was  to  sail  and 
therefore  could  not  wait,  he  promised  rather  than  lose  the  job. 
The  next  day  the  steamer  agent  notified  me  that  the  sailing 
hour  had  been  changed  to  four  o'clock.  I  sent  word  to  the 
tailor  with  faint  hope  of  ever  seeing  that  suit,  and  when  a  later 
message  gave  three  o'clock  as  the  real  time,  I  abandoned  hope. 
But  the  enterprising  Celestial  made  his  fingers  fly,  finished  the 
suit  by  2:50  p.  M.,  and  took  it  to  the  house  of  my  hostess. 
Finding  that  I  had  already  gone  to  the  steamer,  he  hurried  off 
to  the  wharf,  hired  a  sampan,  sculled  a  mile  and  panting  but 
triumphant  placed  the  suit  in  my  hands  just  as  the  steamer  was 
getting  under  way.  His  charge  for  the  suit,  including  all  his 
trouble  and  the  cost  of  the  sampan,  was  ^7  Mexican  (^3.50). 

Saturday  found  me  in  Tsing-tau,  and  Monday,  I  turned  my 
face  inland,  accompanied  by  the  Rev.  J.  H.  Laughlin  and  Dr. 
Charles  H.  Lyon,  and,  as  far  as  Wei-hsien,  by  the  Rev.  Frank 
Chalfant,  all  of  the  Presbyterian  mission,  besides  Mr.  William 
Shipway  of  the  English  Baptist  mission,  who  was  to  accompany 
us  as  far  as  Ching-chou-fu.  To-day,  the  traveller  can  jour- 
ney to  Chinan-fu,  the  capital,  in  a  comfortable  railway 
car,  but  I  shall  always  be  glad  that  my  visit  occurred  in  the  old 
days  when  the  native  methods  of  transportation  were  the  sole 
dependence,  for  at  that  time  the  new  German  railway  was  in 
operation  only  forty-six  miles  to  the  old  city  of  Kiao-chou. 

The  modes  of  conveyance  in  the  interior  of  China  are  five — 
the  donkey,  the  sedan  chair,  the  wheelbarrow,  the  cart  and  the 
shendza  (mule  litter),  and  naturally  the  first  problem  of  the 
traveller  is  to  decide  which  one  he  shall  adopt. 

The  donkey  is  all  right  to  one  accustomed  to  horseback 
riding.     But  there  is  no  protection  from  the  sun  and  rain  and 


54  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

there  are  no  foreign  saddles.  The  traveller  piles  his  bedding 
on  the  animal's  back  and  climbs  on  top,  sitting  either  astride 
or  sideways.  In  either  case,  the  feet  dangle  unsupported  by 
stirrups.  It  is  hard  to  make  long  trips  in  this  way,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  consideration  that  a  man  feels  like  an  idiot  in 
such  circumstances.  "  The  outside  of  a  horse  is  indeed  good 
for  the  inside  of  a  man,"  but  a  mattress  on  top  of  a  donkey  is 
a  different  matter. 

The  chair  is  comfortable  for  short  distances,  but  it  is  com- 
paratively expensive  and,  as  no  change  of  position  is  possible, 
one  soon  becomes  tired  sitting  in  the  fixed  attitude.  In  pity  to 
your  coolies,  you  walk  up-hill  and  you  are  exposed  to  inclem- 
ent weather  unless  you  hire  a  covered  chair.  This,  however, 
is  not  only  hot  and  stuffy,  but  it  makes  people  think  you  an 
aristocrat,  as  only  officials  or  the  rich  use  such  chairs  in  the 
country,  though  in  cities  they  are  a  common  means  of  convey- 
ance. Besides,  I  had  travelled  in  a  chair  in  Korea  and  I 
wished  to  try  something  else  in  China. 

The  Chinese  wheelbarrow  is  a  clumsy  affair  with  a  narrow 
seat  on  each  side  of  a  central  partition.  When  large  and  with 
an  awning,  it  is  not  so  uncomfortable,  but  it  is  not  well  adapted 
to  a  long  journey  as  it  is  slow  and  toilsome.  When  the  mud  is 
deep,  progress  is  almost  impossible.  Moreover,  the  labour  of 
the  barrow-men  constantly  excites  the  sympathy  of  the  humane 
traveller  and  the  dismal  screech  of  the  wheel  revolving  upon 
its  unoiled  axle  is  worse  than  the  rasp  of  filing  a  saw.  The 
Chinese  depend  upon  the  shrieks  of  the  wheel  to  tell  them  how 
the  axle  is  wearing,  but  the  disconsolate  foreigner  finds  that  his 
nerves  wear  out  much  faster  than  the  wooden  axle.  In  Tsing- 
tau,  that  agonizing  screech  proved  too  much  even  for  the  stolid 
Germans  and  they  posted  an  ordinance  to  the  effect  that  all 
barrow  axles  must  be  greased.  The  Chinese  demurred,  but  a 
(tw  arrests  taught  them  obedience,  so  that  now  the  streets  of 
the  German  metropolis  no  longer  resound  with  the  hysterical 
wails  and  moans  so  dear  to  the  heart  of  the  Celestial. 


A  Shendza  in  Shantung  ^^ 

The  Chinese  cart  is  a  curious  affair.  There  are  no  roads  in 
the  interior  of  China,  except  the  ruts  that  have  been  made  by 
the  passing  of  many  feet  and  wheels  for  generations.  In  dry 
weather,  they  are  thick  with  dust  and  in  the  wet  season  they 
are  fathomless  with  mud.  Ahiiost  everywhere  they  are  dis- 
tractingly  crooked,  and  in  many  places  they  are  plentifully  be- 
strewn with  boulders  of  varying  sizes.  Instead  of  spending 
money  in  making  roads,  the  Chinese  have  applied  their  inge- 
nuity to  making  an  indestructible  cart.  They  build  it  of  heavy 
timbers,  with  massive  wheels,  thick  spokes  and  ponderous  hubs, 
and  as  no  springs  could  survive  the  jolting  of  such  a  vehicle, 
the  body  of  the  cart  is  placed  directly  upon  the  huge  axle. 
Then  a  couple  of  big  mules  are  hitched  up  tandem  and  driven 
at  breakneck  speed.  A  runaway  in  an  American  farmer's 
wagon  over  a  corduroy  road  but  feebly  suggests  the  miseries  of 
travel  in  a  Chinese  cart.  It  may  be  good  for  a  dyspeptic,  but 
it  is  about  the  most  uncomfortable  conveyance  that  the  in- 
genuity of  man  has  yet  devised.  The  unhappy  passenger  is 
hurled  against  the  wooden  top  and  sides  and  is  so  jolted  and 
bumped  that,  as  the  small  boy  said  in  his  composition,  "  his 
heart,  lungs,  liver,  kidneys,  stomach,  bones  and  brains  are  all 
mixed  up."  I  tried  the  cart  for  a  while  and  gently  but  firmly 
intimated  that  if  nothing  better  was  available,  I  would  walk.  I 
am  satisfied  that  nothing  short  of  a  modern  battleship  under 
full  steam  could  make  the  slightest  impression  on  the  typical 
Chinese  cart.  In  my  humble  opinion,  a  Chinese  cart  is  like 
any  other  misfortune  in  life.  When  necessary,  it  should  be 
taken  uncomplainingly.  But  the  person  who  takes  it  unnec- 
essarily has  not  reached  the  years  of  discretion  and  should  be 
assigned  a  guardian. 

I  therefore  turned  to  the  shendza.  All  things  considered,  it 
is  the  best  conveyance  for  a  long  interior  journey  in  China. 
It  consists  of  a  couple  long  poles  with  a  rope  basket  work  in  the 
middle  and  a  cover  of  matting.  It  is  borne  by  two  mules,  and 
has  the  advantage  of  protecting  the  traveller  from  the  sun  and 


^6  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

from  light  rains.  An  opening  in  the  back  gives  him  the  benefit 
of  any  breeze  while  u  is  possible  to  get  occasional  relief  by 
changing  position,  as  he  can  either  sit  upright  or  lounge. 
Moreover,  he  can  keep  his  bedding  and  a  little  food  with  him. 
He  need  not  walk  up  hills  in  mercy  to  weary  coolies  and  he 
can  make  the  longer  daily  journeys  which  the  superior  endur- 
ance of  mules  permits.  In  ordinary  conditions  on  level  ground, 
niy  mules  averaged  about  four  miles  an  hour.  The  motion  is  a 
kind  of  sieve-and-pepper-box  shaking  that  is  not  so  bad, 
provided  the  mules  behave  themselves,  which  is  not  often. 
My  rear  mule  had  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit.  He  was  a  dis- 
couraged animal  upon  which  the  sorrows  of  life  had  told 
heavily  and  which  had  reached  that  age  when  he  appeared  to 
have  no  ambition  in  life  except  to  stop  and  think  or  to  lie  down 
and  rest.  The  lead  mule,  however,  was  a  cantankerous  beast 
that  wanted  to  fight  everything  within  reach  and  went  into 
hysterics  every  time  any  other  animal  passed  him.  As  this  oc- 
curred a  score  of  times  a  day,  the  uncertainties  of  the  situa- 
tion were  interesting,  especially  when  the  rear  mule  paused  or 
laid  down  without  having  previously  notified  the  lead  mule. 
At  such  times,  the  sudden  stoppage  of  the  power  behind  and 
the  plunging  of  the  power  in  front  threatened  the  dislocation 
of  the  entire  apparatus,  and  as  there  is  no  way  for  the  traveller 
to  get  out  except  over  the  heels  of  a  mule,  life  in  a  shendza  is 
not  always  uneventful.  But  I  soon  got  used  to  the  motion  and 
to  the  mules,  and  even  learned  to  read  and  to  doze  in  com- 
parative comfort  while  the  long -eared  animals  plodded  and 
jerked  on  in  their  own  way. 

The  most  trying  thing  to  the  humane  traveller  is  the  sore- 
ness of  the  mules'  backs.  I  insisted  on  having  mules  whose 
backs  were  sound,  but  was  told  by  both  missionaries  and 
Chinese  that  they  could  not  be  had,  especially  in  summer,  as 
the  swaying  and  jerking  of  the  shendza  and  the  sweat  and 
dust  under  the  heavy  pack-saddle  always  make  sores.  It  was 
all  too  true.     I  examined  scores  of  mules  and  every  one  had 


GERMANS  BUILDING  RAILWAY  BRIDGE   IN 

SHANTUNG 


A  SHENDZA  IN  SHANTUNG 


A  Shendza  in  Shantung  ry 

raw  and  bleeding  abrasions  and,  in  some  cases,  suppurating 
ulcers.  For  a  Chinese,  our  head  muleteer  was  careful  of  his 
animals  and  washed  them  occasionally,  but  no  practicable  care 
apparently  can  prevent  a  shendza  from  making  a  sore  back. 
The  only  solace  I  had  was  the  evident  indifference  of  the 
mules  themselves.  They  had  never  known  anything  better, 
and  seemed  to  take  misery  as  a  matter  of  course. 

Our  party,  with  the  goods  we  had  to  carry,  for  my  mission- 
ary friends  were  returning  to  their  stations  with  the  expecta- 
tion of  remaining,  included  three  shendzas,  two  carts  and  a 
pack-mule  for  our  provisions.     But  the  "  mule  "  turned  out  to 
be  a  donkey  and  unable  to  carry  all  we  had  planned  for  a  larger 
animal.     While  wondering  how  we  were  to  get  our  supplies 
carried,  we  learned  that  a  construction  train  was  about  to  start 
for  the  end  of  the  track,  which  was  said  to  be  Kaomi,  fifty- 
five  li '  beyond  Kiao-chou.     We  got  permission  to  ride  on  the 
flat  car.     In  the  hope  that  we  might  be  able  to  secure  a  mule  or 
another  donkey  in  Kaomi,  we  got  aboard,  leaving  our  shendzas 
and  carts  to  follow.     After  a  lovely  ride  of  an  hour  through 
wheat-fields  interspersed  with  villages,  our  train  stopped  twelve 
li  from  Kaomi,  an  unfinished  culvert  making  further  progress 
impossible.     As  our  caravan  had  gone  by  a  different  route  and 
as  no  coolies  could  be  hired  where  we  were,  the  question  was 
how  to  get  our  goods  transported.     Fortunately,  a  German 
Roman   Catholic   priest,   who  was   also   on    the   construction 
train  and  who  had  wheelbarrows  for  his  own  goods,  cordially 
told  us  to  pile  our  luggage  on  top  of  his.     We  gratefully  ac- 
cepted this  kind  offer,  and  giving  his  coolies  some  extra  cash 
for  their  labour,  they  good-naturedly  accepted  the  additional 
burden,  while  we  footed  the  twelve  li  to  Kaomi. 

But  the  progress  of  the  barrows  was  slow  and  it  was  half- 
past  eight  when  we  reached  Kaomi.     In  the  darkness  we  could 
not  find  the  inn  which  the  magistrate  had  set  aside  for  foreign- 
ers and  the  Chinese  whom  we  met  gave  conflicting  replies. 
1  A  li  is  about  a  third  of  a  mile. 


58  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

But  at  that  moment,  two  resident  Roman  Catholic  priests, 
Austrians,  appeared  and  one  of  them  recognized  Mr.  Laughlin 
as  the  associate  of  Dr.  Van  Schoick,  a  Presbyterian  medical 
missionary  who  had  sympathetically  treated  a  fellow  priest  dur- 
ing a  long  and  dangerous  illness  several  years  before.  He 
promptly  invited  us  to  go  with  him,  declaring  that  Dr.  Van 
Schoick  had  saved  the  life  of  his  dearest  friend.  He  was 
so  cordially  insistent  that  we  accepted  his  invitation.  Our 
shendzas,  carts  and  pack-mule  were  we  knew  not  where,  and 
we  were  hungry  after  our  long  day.  Warned  by  my  experi- 
ence in  Korea  that  the  traveller  should  never  trust  to  the 
punctuality  of  natives  and  pack-animals,  I  had  insisted  on 
taking  our  bedding  and  a  little  food  on  the  flat  car.  It  was 
well  that  I  did,  for  we  did  not  see  our  shendzas  that  night  as 
they  arrived  after  the  city  gates  had  been  shut  so  that  they 
could  not  get  in.  But  we  had  a  little  cocoa,  tinned  corn  beef, 
condensed  milk,  butter  and  marmalade.  Same  German  soldiers 
sent  three  loaves  of  coarse  bread.  Our  priestly  host  added 
some  Chinese  bread,  and  so  had  a  good  supper  and  afterwards 
a  sound  sleep. 

At  half-past  four  the  next  morning,  Mr.  Laughlin  remarked 
in  a  forty-horse  power  tone  of  voice  that  it  was  time  to  get  up. 
By  the  time  the  reverberations  had  died  away,  we  were  so  wide 
awake  that  further  sleep  was  out  of  the  question.  Our  cook 
was  nowhere  in  sight,  so  we  prepared  our  own  breakfast  from 
the  remains  of  last  night's  meal. 

Bidding  a  grateful  farewell  to  our  hospitable  priests,  we  rode 
across  an  ancient  lake  bottom,  low,  flat,  wheat-covered  and  hot 
enough  to  broil  meat.  At  half- past  ten  o'clock,  we  reached 
Fau-chia-chiu,  the  boundary  of  the  hinterland,  where,  near  a 
temple  just  outside  the  wall,  we  found  Governor  Yuan  Shih 
Kai's  military  escort  awaiting  us.  It  was  after  sundown  when 
we  reached  Liu-chia-chuang,  and  we  felt  half  inclined  to  spend 
the  night  there  with  some  genial  German  military  engineers, 
but  our  party  had  become  separated  during  the  day  and  as 


A  Shendza  in  Shantung  59 

the  others  had  taken  a  road  that  did  not  pass  through  Liu- 
chia-chuang,  we  pushed  on  to  Hsi-an-tai,  which  we  reached  by 
a  little  after  ten  o'clock.  By  that  time,  it  was  so  dark  that  it 
was  impossible  to  go  further  and  we  found  lodgment  in  a  good- 
sized  building  which  smelled  to  heaven.  The  odour  was  like 
that  of  a  decomposing  body.  However,  it  was  too  late  and  we 
were  too  weary  either  to  hunt  up  smells  or  to  seek  another  lodg- 
ing place.  So  after  a  hasty  supper  out  of  our  tinned  food,  we 
put  up  our  cots  and  went  to  bed,  Mr.  Chalfant  making  a  few 
pleasant  remarks  about  the  bedbugs  that  always  swarm  in  such 
a  building,  the  centipedes  that  sometimes  crawl  into  the  ears  or 
nostrils  of  sleepers  and  the  scorpions  that  occasionally  fall  from 
the  millet-stalk  ceiling  on  to  the  bed  or  scuttle  across  the  floor 
to  bite  the  person  who  unwarily  walks  in  his  bare  feet.  Under 
the  influence  of  such  a  soporific,  I  soon  fell  asleep.  The  next 
morning  we  rose  early,  and  while  the  cook  was  preparing  our 
coffee  and  eggs,  we  followed  the  trail  of  that  awful  odour  to  a 
corner  of  the  building,  where,  under  some  millet  stalks,  we 
found  a  rude  cofiin  which  we  had  not  noticed  in  the  dim  candle- 
light of  the  night  before.  A  Chinese  of  whom  we  inquired 
said  that  it  was  empty.  We  could  not  in  courtesy  open  a 
cofiin  before  dozens  of  interested  Chinese,  but  it  was  very 
plain  to  our  olfactories  that  such  an  odour  required  a  prompt 
funeral. 

As  usual,  a  great  but  silent  crowd  watched  me  as  I  wrote 
while  the  mules  were  being  fed  and  at  Hsien-chung,  where 
we  stopped  at  noon  to  repair  a  shendza,  Mr.  Chalfant  trans- 
lated a  proclamation  on  a  wall  stating  that  an  indemnity  of 
110,000  taels  had  to  be  paid  for  damage  to  the  railway  during 
the  Boxer  outbreak  and  that  14,773  ^^^^s  had  been  assessed  on 
Wei  County.  The  people  read  it  with  scowling  faces,  but  they 
said  nothing  to  us,  though  they  looked  as  if  they  wanted  to. 

At  two  o'clock,  we  entered  the  ruined  Presbyterian  com- 
pound, a  mile  southeast  of  the  city  of  Wei-hsien.  It  was 
thrilling   to   hear  on   the  scene   of  the   riot   Mr.    Chalfant's 


6o  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

account  of  the  attack  by  about  a  thousand  furious  Boxers; 
to  see  the  place  just  outside  the  gate  where  single-handed  and 
with  no  weapon  but  a  small  revolver,  he  had  heroically  held 
the  mob  at  bay  for  several  hours  until  the  swarming  Boxers, 
awed  by  his  splendid  courage,  divided,  and  while  several 
hundred  held  his  attention,  the  rest  climbed  over  the  wall  at 
another  place  and  fired  the  mission  buildings.  That  the  three 
missionaries  escaped  with  their  lives  is  a  wonder.  But  Mr. 
Chalfant  quickly  ran  to  the  house  where  Miss  Hawes  and  Miss 
Boughton  were  awaiting  him,  hurried  them  down -stairs, 
and  while  the  Boxers  were  smashing  the  furniture  on  the  other 
side  of  a  closed  door,  snatched  up  a  ladder,  assisted  them  over 
the  compound  wall  at  a  point  that  was  providentially  un- 
guarded and  hid  them  in  a  field  of  grain  until  darkness 
enabled  them  to  make  their  way  exhausted  but  unhurt  to  a  camp 
of  German  soldiers  and  engineers  nine  miles  distant  and  to 
escape  with  them  to  Tsing-tau.  It  was  a  remarkable  ex- 
perience. If  that  door  had  not  happened  to  be  closed,  and  if 
a  ladder  had  not  been  carelessly  left  by  a  servant  beside  the 
house,  and  if  the  attack  itself  had  not  occurred  just  before 
dark,  undoubtedly  all  three  would  have  been  killed.  On  each 
of  those  three  ifs,  lives  depended. 

Mr.  Fitch  cordially  welcomed  us.  Mr.  Chalfant  killed  a 
centipede  and  various  insects  crawling  on  the  walls  near  my 
cot  and  a  little  after  nine  I  was  asleep.  The  next  day  we 
took  a  walk  through  the  city,  impressed  by  its  imposing  wall 
and  the  throngs  of  people  who  followed  us  and  watched  every 
movement.  Outside  the  wall,  we  saw  a  "baby  house,"  a 
small  stone  building  in  which  the  dead  children  of  the  poor 
are  thrown  to  be  eaten  by  dogs  !  I  wanted  to  examine  it,  but 
was  warned  not  to  do  so,  as  the  Chinese  imagine  that 
foreigners  make  their  medicine  out  of  children's  eyes  and 
brains,  and  our  crowds  of  watching  Chinese  might  quickly  be- 
come an  infuriated  mob. 

Immediately  on  our  arrival,  we  had   sent  our  cards  to  the 


A  Shendza  in  Shantung  6l 

district  magistrate  and  in  the  afternoon  he  sent  us  an  elaborate 
feast.  As  we  were  about  to  retire  that  evening,  he  called  in  a 
gorgeous  chair  with  a  retinue  of  twenty  attendants.  He  stayed 
half  an  hour  and  was  very  cordial,  and  we  had  a  pleasant  inter- 
view. Wei-hsien  is  famous  for  its  embroideries,  and  great 
quantities  are  made,  the  women  workers  receiving  about  fifty 
small  cash  a  day  (less  than  two  cents).  It  was  not  necessary 
to  go  to  the  stores  as  in  America.  The  shopkeepers  brought  a 
great  number  of  pieces  to  our  inn,  covering  the  kang  and  every 
available  table,  chair  and  box  with  exquisite  bits  of  handi- 
work. Lured  by  the  sight  I  became  reckless  and  bought  four 
handsome  pieces  for  19,800  small  cash  ($6.06). 

Resuming  our  journey  on  a  warm,  sunny  day,  we  entered 
Chiang-loa  at  noon.  It  was  market  day,  and  the  greatest 
crowd  yet  fairly  blocked  the  streets.  The  soldiers  had  diffi- 
culty in  clearing  a  way  for  us.  But  while  much  curiosity 
was  expressed,  there  was  no  sign  of  hostility.  Then  we 
journeyed  on  through  the  interminable  fields  of  ripening  wheat. 
Soon,  mountains,  which  we  had  dimly  seen  for  several  hours, 
grew  more  distinct  and  as  we  approached  Ching-chou-fu  to- 
wards evening,  the  scene  was  one  of  great  beauty — the  yellow- 
ing grain  gently  undulating  in  the  soft  breeze,  the  mountains 
not  really  more  than  3,000  feet  in  height,  but  from  our  stand 
on  the  plain  looking  lofty,  massive  and  delightfully  refreshing 
to  the  eye  after  our  hot  and  dusty  journeying.  The  city  has  a 
population  of  about  25,000  and  its  numerous  trees  look  so  in- 
vitingly green  that  the  traveller  is  eager  to  enter. 

But  in  this  case  also,  distance  lent  enchantment,  for  within, 
while  there  was  not  the  filth  of  a  Korean  village,  yet  the  narrow 
streets  were  far  from  clean.  Not  a  blade  of  grass  relieved  the 
bare,  dusty  ground  trampled  by  many  feet,  while  the  low,  mud- 
plastered  houses  were  not  inviting.  A  Chinese  seldom  thinks 
of  making  repairs.  He  builds  once,  usually  with  rough  stone 
plastered  with  mud  or  with  sun-dried  brick.  The  roof  is 
thatched  and  the  floor  is  the  beaten  earth,  although  in  the 


62  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

better  houses  it  is  stone  or  brick.  In  time,  the  mud-plaster 
or,  if  the  walls  are  of  sun-dried  brick,  the  wall  itself  begins  to 
disintegrate.  But  it  is  let  alone,  as  long  as  it  does  not  make 
the  house  uninhabitable,  while  paint  is  unknown.  So  the  gen- 
eral appearance  of  a  Chinese  town  is  squalid  and  tumble- 
down. Even  the  yamen  of  a  district  magistrate  presents 
crumbhng  walls,  unkempt  courtyards,  rickety  buildings  and 
paper-covered  windows  full  of  holes.  The  palaces  of  the  rich 
are  often  expensive,  but  the  Asiatic  has  little  of  our  ideas  of 
comfort  and  order. 

The  Rev.  J.  P.  Bruce  and  Mr.  R.  C.  Forsyth,  of  the  English 
Baptist  mission,  the  only  members  of  the  station  who  were 
present,  gave  us  a  hearty  welcome.  The  green  shrubbery, 
the  bath-tub,  the  dinner  of  roast  beef  and  the  clean  bedroom, 
were  like  a  bit  of  hospitable  old  England  set  down  in  China. 
None  of  the  buildings  here  were  injured  by  the  Boxers.  But 
the  marauders  took  whatever  they  could  use,  as  dishes,  utensils, 
glass,  linen,  clothes,  silver  and  plated  ware,  jewelry,  etc.,  the 
total  loss  being  ^4,000,  including  ;;^i,ooo  for  machinery. 
That  machinery  has  an  interesting  history.  One  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  mission,  Mr.  A.  G.  Jones,  conceived  the  idea  of 
relieving  the  poverty  of  the  Chinese  by  introducing  cotton 
weaving.  Having  some  private  means  and  being  a  mechanical 
genius,  he  spent  two  years  and  ;;^  1,000  in  devising  the 
necessary  machinery,  much  of  which  he  made  himself.  He 
had  completed  the  plant  and  was  trying  to  induce  the  Chinese 
to  organize  a  company  of  Christians  who  would  operate  the 
factory,  when  the  building  was  burned  by  the  Boxers  and  the 
machinery  reduced  to  a  heap  of  twisted  scrap-iron. 

The  women  we  met  in  these  interior  districts  had  only 
partially  bound  feet,  though  they  were  still  far  from  the  natural 
size.  It  was  surprising  to  see  how  freely  the  women  walked, 
especially  as  several  that  I  saw  were  carrying  babies.  But  it 
was  rather  a  stumpy  walk.  Women  of  the  higher  class  have 
smaller  feet  and  never  walk  in  the  public  streets. 


A  Shendza  in  Shantung  63 

We  left  Ching-chou-fu  Monday  morning,  our  genial  hosts, 
including  Mr.  Shipway,  who  remained  here,  accompanying  us 
a  couple  of  miles.  The  trees  were  more  numerous,  and  as  the 
weather  was  cool,  I  greatly  enjoyed  the  day.  But  the  next 
day,  we  plodded  under  dripping  skies  and  through  sticky  mud 
to  Chang-tien,  where  a  night  of  unusual  discomfort  in  an  inn 
literally  alive  with  fleas  and  mosquitoes  prepared  us  to  enjoy  a 
tiffin  with  a  lonely  English  Baptist  outpost,  the  genial  Rev. 
William  A.  Wills,  at  Chou-tsian,  which  we  reached  at  noon 
the  following  day,  and  then,  thirty  li  further  on,  the  gracious 
hospitality  of  the  main  station  at  Chou-ping.  Only  three  men 
were  present  of  the  regular  station  force  of  seven  families  and 
two  single  women,  but  they  gave  us  all  the  more  abundant 
welcome  in  their  isolation  and  loneliness.  Of  the  2,577 
Chinese  Christians  of  this  station,  132  were  murdered  by  the 
Boxers  and  seventy  or  more  died  from  consequent  exposure  and 
injuries. 

A  vast,  low  lying  plain  begins  forty  li  north  of  Chou-ping 
and  extends  northeastward  as  far  as  Tien-tsin.  This  plain  is  sub- 
ject to  destructive  inundations  from  the  Yellow  River  and  the 
scenes  of  ruin  and  suffering  are  sometimes  appalling.  Our  inn 
at  Luang-hsien  the  next  night  was  a  two-story  brick  building 
with  iron  doors,  stone  floors,  walls  two  and  a-half  feet  thick  and 
rooms  dark,  gloomy,  ill-smelling  as  a  dungeon  and  of  course 
swarming  with  vermin,  as  savage  bites  promptly  testified.  My 
missionary  companion  said  that  it  was  probably  an  old  pawn- 
shop. Pawnbroking  is  esteemed  an  honourable,  as  well  as 
lucrative,  business  in  China,  and  the  brokers  are  influential 
men  and  often  have  considerable  property  in  their  shops.  The 
people  are  so  poor  that  they  sometimes  pawn  their  winter  clothes 
in  summer  and  their  summer  ones  in  winter. 

At  noon  the  next  day,  we  reached  Chinan-fu,  having  made 
seventy  li  in  six  hours  over  muddy  roads.  Dr.  James  B.  Neal 
of  the  Presbyterian  mission  was  alone  in  the  city  and  gave  us 
hospitable  welcome  to  his  home  and  to  the  splendid  missionary 


64  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

work  of  the  station,  though  he  rather  suggestively  stopped  our 
cooHes  when  they  were  about  to  carry  our  bedding  into  the 
house.  He  was  wise,  too,  for  that  bedding  had  been  used  in 
too  many  native  inns  to  be  prudently  admitted  to  a  well- 
ordered  household. 

As  we  walked  through  the  city,  the  narrow  streets  were 
literally  jammed,  for  it  was  market  day.  Foreigners  had  been 
scarce  since  the  Boxer  outbreak  a  year  before.  Besides,  many 
of  the  people  were  from  the  country  where  foreigners  are 
seldom  seen  anyway.  So  we  made  as  great  a  sensation  as  a 
circus  in  an  American  city.  A  multitude  followed  us,  and 
wherever  we  stopped  hundreds  packed  the  narrow  streets. 
Our  soldiers  cleared  the  way,  but  they  had  no  difficulty,  for 
though  the  people  were  inquisitive  they  were  not  hostile. 
Three  magnificent  springs  burst  forth  in  the  heart  of  the  city, 
one  as  large  as  the  famous  spring  in  Roanoke,  Virginia,  which 
supplies  all  that  city  with  water.  It  was  about  a  hundred  feet 
across.  The  water  might  easily  be  piped  all  over  Chinan-fu. 
But  this  is  China,  and  so  the  people  patiently  walk  to  the 
springs  for  their  daily  supply. 


VI 

AT  THE  GRAVE  OF  CONFUCIUS 

WE  were  now  approaching  the  most  sacred  places  of 
China.  On  a  hot  July  afternoon  of  the  second  day 
from  Chinan-fu,  the  capital  of  the  province,  we  saw 
the  noble  proportions  of  Tai-shan,  the  holy  mountain.  The 
Chinese  have  five  sacred  mountains,  but  this  is  the  most  vener- 
ated of  all.  Its  altitude  is  not  great,  only  a  little  over  4,000 
feet,  but  it  rises  so  directly  from  the  plain  and  its  outlines  are 
so  majestic  that  it  is  really  imposing.  To  the  Chinese  its 
height  is  awe-inspiring,  for  in  all  the  eighteen  provinces  there 
is  no  loftier  peak. 

Stopping  for  the  night  at  the  ancient  city  of  Tai-an-fu  at  the 
base  of  the  mountain,  we  set  out  at  six  the  next  morning  in 
chairs  swung  between  poles  borne  by  stalwart  coolies.  My 
curiosity  was  aroused  when  I  found  that  they  were  Mohamme- 
dans and,  as  they  cordially  responded  to  my  questionings,  I 
found  them  very  interesting.  Centuries  ago,  their  ancestors 
came  to  China  as  mercenaries,  and  taking  Chinese  wives  set- 
tled in  the  country.  But  they  have  never  intermarried  since. 
They  have  adopted  the  dress  and  language  of  the  Chinese,  but 
otherwise  they  continue  almost  as  distinct  as  the  Jews  in 
America,  They  instruct  their  children  in  the  doctrines  of 
Islam,  though  the  Mohammedan  rule  that  the  Koran  must  not 
be  translated  has  prevented  all  but  a  few  literati  from  obtaining 
any  knowledge  of  the  book  itself.  They  have  done  little 
proselyting,  but  natural  increase,  occasional  reenforcements 
and  the  adoption  of  famine  children  have  gradually  swelled 
their  ranks  until  they  now  number  many  millions  in  various 

65 


66  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

parts  of  China.  In  some  provinces  they  are  very  strong,  par- 
ticularly in  Yun-nan  and  Kan-su  where  they  are  said  to  form  a 
majority  of  the  population.  They  are  notorious  for  turbulence 
and  are  popularly  known  as  "  Mohammedan  thieves."  It 
must  be  admitted  that  they  not  infrequently  justify  their  repu- 
tation for  robbery,  murder  and  counterfeiting.  More  than 
once  they  have  fomented  bloody  revolutions,  one  of  them,  the 
great  Panthay  rebellion  of  185 5-1 8 74,  costing  the  lives  of  no 
less  than  two  million  Moslems  before  it  was  suppressed. 

But  those  who  bore  me  up  the  long  slope  of  Tai-shan  were 
as  good-natured  as  they  were  muscular.  There  is  no  difficulty 
about  ascending  the  mountain,  for  a  stone-paved  path  about 
ten  feet  wide  runs  from  base  to  summit.  The  maker  of  this 
road  is  unknown  as  the  earliest  records  and  monuments  refer 
only  to  repairs.  But  he  builded  well  and  evidently  with  "  an 
unlimited  command  of  naked  human  strength,"  for  the  blocks 
of  stone  are  heavy  and  the  masonry  of  the  walls  and  bridges  is 
still  massive. 

As  the  slope  becomes  steeper,  the  path  merges  into  long 
flights  of  solid  stone  steps.  Near  the  summit,  these  steps 
become  so  precipitous  that  the  traveller  is  apt  to  feel  a  little 
dizzy,  especially  in  descending,  for  the  chair  coolies  race  down 
the  steep  stairway  in  a  way  that  suggests  alarming  possibilities 
in  the  event  of  a  misstep  or  a  broken  rope.  But  the  men  are 
sure-footed  and  mishaps  seldom  occur.  The  path  is  bordered 
by  a  low  wall  and  lined  with  noble  old  trees.  Ancient  temples, 
quaint  hamlets,  numerous  tea-houses  and  a  few  nunneries  with 
vicious  women  are  scattered  along  the  route.  A  beautiful 
stream  tumbles  noisily  down  the  mountainside  close  at  hand, 
alternating  swift  rapids  and  deep,  quiet  pools,  while  as  the 
traveller  rises,  he  gains  magnificent  vistas  of  the  adjacent  moun- 
tains and  the  wide  cultivated  plain,  yellow  with  ripening  wheat, 
green  with  growing  millet,  and  thickly  dotted  with  the  groves 
beneath  which  cluster  the  low  houses  of  the  villages. 

Up  this  long,  steep  pathway  to  the  Buddhist  temples  on  the 


At  the  Grave  of  Confucius  67 

summit,  multitudes  of  Chinese  pilgrims  toil  each  year,  firmly 
believing  that  the  journey  will  bring  them  merit.  We  reflected 
with  a  feeling  of  awe  that 

"  The  path  by  which  we  ascended  has  been  trodden  by  the  feet  of  men  for 
more  than  four  thousand  years.  One  hundred  and  fifty  generations  have 
come  and  gone  since  the  great  Shun  here  offered  up  his  yearly  sacrifice  to 
heaven.  Fifteen  hundred  years  before  the  bard  of  Greece  composed  his 
Epic,  nearly  one  thousand  years  before  Moses  stood  on  Pisgah's  mount 
and  gazed  over  into  the  promised  land,  far  back  through  the  centuries 
vv^hen  the  world  was  young  and  humanity  yet  in  its  cradle,  did  the  chil- 
dren of  men  ascend  the  vast  shaggy  sides  of  this  same  mountain,  probably 
by  this  same  path,  and  always  to  worship."  ' 

After  a  night  at  Hsia-chang,  we  resumed  our  journey  a  little 
after  daylight.  The  early  morning  air  was  delightfully  cool 
and  bracing,  but  the  sun's  rays  became  fierce  as  we  entered  the 
dry,  sandy  bed  of  the  Wen  River.  By  the  time  we  reached  the 
broad,  shallow  stream  itself,  I  envied  the  two  mules  and  the 
donkey  that  managed  to  fall  into  a  hole,  though  I  would  have 
been  happier  if  they  had  been  thoughtful  enough  to  discard  my 
spare  clothes  and  my  food  box  before  they  tumbled  into  the 
muddy  water.  The  whole  day  was  unusually  hot  so  that  by 
the  time  we  reached  Ning-yang,  we  were  ready  for  a  night's 
rest  which  even  fighting  mules,  vicious  vermin,  and  quarrelling 
Chinese  gamblers  in  the  inn  courtyard  could  not  entirely 
destroy. 

As  we  approached  Chining-chou,  the  country  became  almost 
perfectly  flat,  a  vast  prairie.  It  was  carefully  cultivated  every- 
where, the  kao-liang  and  poppy  predominating.  The  soil  was 
apparently  rich,  and  the  landscape  was  relieved  from  monotony 
by  the  green  of  the  cultivated  fields  and  the  foliage  of  the  vil- 
lage trees.  Dominating  all  is  the  rather  imposing  walled  city 
of  Chining-chou.  The  high,  strong  wall,  the  handsome  gates 
and  towers,  the  trees  bordering  the  little  stream  and  the 
crowded  streets  looked  quite  metropolitan.     With  its  imme- 

'  The  Rev.  Dr.  Paul  D.  Bergen,  pamphlet. 


68  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

diate  suburbs  built  Chinese  fashion  close  to  the  wall,  Chining- 
chou  has  150,000  inhabitants.  It  is  a  business  city  with  a 
considerable  trade,  the  produce  of  a  wide  adjacent  region 
being  brought  to  it  for  shipment,  as  it  is  on  the  Grand  Canal 
which  gives  easy  and  cheap  facilities  for  exporting  and  import- 
ing freight.  There  is,  moreover,  no  loss  in  exchange  as  the 
danger  of  shipping  bullion  silver  makes  the  Chining  business 
men  eager  to  accept  drafts  for  use  in  paying  for  the  goods  they 
buy  in  Shanghai.  Consequently  there  is  a  better  price  for 
silver  here  than  anywhere  else  in  Shantung.  The  main  street 
is  narrow,  shaded  by  matting  laid  on  kao-liang  stalks  and 
lined  with  busy  shops.  Along  the  Grand  Canal,  there  is  a 
veritable  "  Vanity  Fair  "  filled  with  clothing  booths  and  deafen- 
ing with  the  cries  of  itinerant  vendors. 

But  the  loneliness  of  the  missionary  in  Chining-chou  is 
great,  for  he  is  far  from  congenial  companionship.  The  trage- 
dies of  life  are  particularly  heavy  at  such  an  isolated  post. 
Mr.  Laughlin  showed  me  the  house  where  his  wife's  body  lay 
for  a  month  after  her  death  in  May,  1899.  Then,  with  his 
nine-year  old  daughter,  he  took  the  body  in  a  house-boat  down 
the  Grand  Canal  to  Chin-kiang,  a  journey  of  sixteen  days. 
What  a  heart-breaking  journey  it  must  have  been  as  the  clumsy 
boat  crept  slowly  along  the  sluggish  canal  and  the  silent  stars 
looked  down  on  the  lonely  husband  beside  the  coffin  of  his  be- 
loved wife.  Yet  he  bravely  returned  to  Chining-chou  and 
while  I  travelled  on,  he  remained  with  only  Dr.  Lyon  for  a 
companion.  I  was  sorry  to  part  with  them  for  we  had  shared 
many  long-to-be-remembered  experiences,  while  at  that  time 
there  was  believed  to  be  no  small  risk  in  remaining  at  such  an 
isolated  post.  But  Dr.  Johnson  and  I  had  to  go,  and  so  early 
on  the  morning  of  June  1 7,  we  bade  the  brave  fellows  an  affec- 
tionate good-bye  and  left  them  in  that  far  interior  city,  standing 
at  the  East  Gate  till  we  were  out  of  sight. 

Fortunately,  the  day  was  fine  for  rain  would  have  made  the 
flat,   black  soil  almost  impassible.     But  as  it  was,  we  had  a 


At  the  Grave  of  Confucius  69 

comfortable,  dustless  ride  of  sixty  li  to  Yen-chou-fu,  a  city  of 
unusually  massive  walls,  whose  60,000  people  are  reputed  to  be 
the  most  fiercely  anti-foreign  in  Shantung.  Comparatively  few 
foreigners  had  been  seen  in  this  region  and  many  of  them  had 
been  mobbed.  The  Roman  Catholic  priests,  who  are  the  only 
missionaries  here,  have  repeatedly  been  attacked,  while  an  Eng- 
lish traveller  was  also  savagely  assaulted  by  these  turbulent  con- 
servatives. But  the  Roman  Catholics  with  characteristic  de- 
termination fought  it  out,  the  German  minister  coming  from 
Peking  to  support  them,  and  at  the  time  of  my  visit,  they  were 
building  a  splendid  church,  the  money  like  that  for  the  Chin- 
ing-chou  cathedral,  coming  from  the  indemnity  for  the  murder 
of  the  two  priests  in  1897,  which  was  in  this  diocese.  Though 
great  crowds  stared  silently  at  us,  no  disrespect  was  shown. 
On  the  contrary,  we  found  that  by  order  of  the  district  magis- 
trate an  inn  had  been  specially  prepared  for  us,  with  a  plentiful 
supply  of  rugs  and  cushions  and  screens,  while  a  few  minutes 
after  our  arrival,  the  magistrate  sent  with  his  compliments  a 
feast  of  twenty-five  dishes.  Another  stage  of  nine  miles 
brought  us  at  four  o'clock  to  the  famous  holy  city  of  China, 
Ku-fu,  the  home  and  the  grave  of  Confucius. 

Leaving  our  shendzas  at  an  inn,  we  mounted  the  cavalry 
horses  of  our  escort  and  hurried  to  the  celebrated  temple  which 
stands  on  the  site  of  Confucius'  house.  But  to  our  keen  dis- 
appointment, the  massive  gates  were  closed.  The  keeper,  in 
response  to  our  knocks,  peered  through  a  crevice,  and  ex- 
plained that  it  was  the  great  feast  of  the  fifth  day  of  the  fifth 
month,  that  the  Duke  was  offering  sacrifices,  and  that  no  one, 
not  even  officials,  could  enter  till  the  sacrifices  were  completed. 
"When  will  that  be?"  we  queried.  "They  will  continue  all 
night  and  all  day  to-morrow,"  was  the  reply.  We  urged  the 
shortness  of  our  stay  and  solemnly  promised  to  keep  out  of  the 
Duke's  way.  The  keeper's  eyes  watered  as  he  imagined  a 
present,  but  he  replied  that  he  did  not  dare  let  us  in  as  his 
orders  were  strict  and  disobedience  might  cost  him  his  position 


yo  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

if  not  his  life.  So  we  sorrowfully  turned  away,  and  pushing 
through  the  dense  throng  which  had  swiftly  assembled  at  the 
sight  of  a  foreigner,  we  rode  through  the  city  and  along  the  far- 
famed  Spirit  Road  to  the  Most  Holy  Grove  in  which  lies  the 
body  of  Confucius.  It  is  three  li,  about  a  mile,  from  the  city 
gate.  The  road  is  shaded  by  ancient  cedars  and  is  called  the 
Spirit  Road  because  the  spirit  of  Confucius  is  believed  to  walk 
back  and  forth  upon  it  by  night. 

The  famous  cemetery  is  in  three  parts.  The  outer  is  said  to 
be  fifteen  miles  in  circumference  and  is  the  burial-place  of  all 
who  bear  the  honoured  name  of  Confucius.  Within,  there  is 
a  smaller  enclosure  of  about  ten  acres,  which  is  the  family  burial 
place  of  the  dukes  who  are  lineal  descendants  of  Confucius, 
mighty  men  who  rank  with  the  proudest  governors  of  provinces. 
Within  this  second  enclosure,  is  the  Most  Holy  Cemetery  itself, 
a  plot  of  about  two  acres,  shaded  like  the  others  by  fine  old 
cedars  and  cypresses.  Here  are  only  three  graves,  marked  by 
huge  mounds  under  which  lie  the  dust  of  Confucius,  his  son 
and  his  grandson.  That  of  the  Sage,  we  estimated  to  be 
twenty-five  feet  high  and  250  feet  in  circumference.  In  front 
of  it  is  a  stone  monument  about  fifteen  feet  high,  four  feet  wide 
and  sixteen  inches  thick.  Lying  prone  before  that  is  another 
stone  of  nearly  the  same  size  supported  by  a  heavy  stone 
pedestal.  There  is  no  name,  but  on  the  upright  monument  are 
Chinese  characters  which  Dr.  Charles  Johnson,  my  travelling 
companion,  translated  :  "The  Acme  of  Perfection  and  Learn- 
ing-Promoting King,"  or  more  freely — "The  Most  Illustrious 
Sage  and  Princely  Teacher." 

Uncut  grass  and  weeds  grew  rankly  upon  the  mounds  and  all 
over  the  cemetery,  giving  everything  an  unkempt  appearance. 
One  species  is  said  to  grow  nowhere  else  in  China  and  to  have 
such  magical  power  in  interpreting  truth  that  if  a  leaf  is  laid 
upon  an  abstruse  passage  of  Confucius,  the  meaning  will  im- 
mediately become  clear.  There  are  several  small  buildings  in 
the  enclosure,  but  dust  and  decay  reign  in  all,  for  there  is  no 


CLIMBING  TAI-SHAN,  THE  SACRED  MOUNTAIN 


\mamm^:^3^^m.^T^ 

B-  ''^^:3«i 

Ili^Hll 

'::^'St^^^jL  ^:fiw^ 

■     ^^^ 

'  4^^*l^' " 

■#.    ^' 

^l^iW"    '     ^:^  -v 

,      « 

tfc__ 

■tti 

i^  -■^,.  |.   §.  BnHK??'   '-*  - 

^' 

THE  GRAVE  OF  CONFUCIUS 


At  the  Grave  of  Confucius  71 

merit  in  repairing  a  building  that  some  one  else  has  erected. 
As  with  his  house,  the  Chinese  will  spend  money  freely  to  build 
a  temple,  but  after  that  he  does  nothing.  So  even  in  the  most 
sacred  places,  arches  and  walls  and  columns  are  usually  crumb- 
ling, grounds  are  dirty  and  pavement  stones  out  of  place, 

A  feeling  of  awe  came  over  me  as  I  remembered  that,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Buddha,  the  man  whose  dust  lay  before 
me  had  probably  influenced  more  human  beings  than  any  other 
man  whom  the  world  has  seen.  Even  Christ  Himself  has  thus 
far  not  been  known  to  so  many  people  as  Confucius,  nor  has 
any  nation  in  which  Christ  is  known  so  thoroughly  accepted 
His  teachings  as  China  has  accepted  those  of  Confucius.  Dr. 
Legge  indeed  declares  that  "after  long  study  of  his  character 
and  opinions,  I  am  unable  to  regard  him  as  a  great  man," 
while  Dr.  Gibson  "  seeks  in  vain  in  his  recorded  life  and  words 
for  the  secret  of  his  power,"  and  can  only  conjecture  in  ex- 
planation that  "he  is  for  all  time  the  typical  Chinaman;  but 
his  greatness  lies  in  his  displaying  the  type  on  a  grand  scale, 
not  in  creating  it."  But  it  is  difficult  even  for  the  non-Chinese 
mind  to  look  at  such  a  man  with  unbiassed  eyes.  Surely  we 
need  not  begrudge  the  meed  of  greatness  to  one  who  has 
moulded  so  many  hundreds  of  millions  of  human  beings  for 
2,400  years  and  who  is  more  influential  at  the  end  of  that  pe- 
riod than  at  its  beginning.  Grant  that  "he  is  for  all  time  the 
typical  Chinaman."  Could  a  small  man  have  incarnated  "  for 
all  time"  the  spirit  of  one-third  of  the  human  race?  All  over 
China  the  evidences  of  Confucius'  power  can  be  seen.  Tem- 
ples rise  on  every  hand.  Ancestral  tablets  adorn  every  house. 
The  writings  of  the  sage  are  diligently  studied  by  the  whole 
population.  When,  centuries  ago,  a  jealous  Emperor  ruth- 
lessly burned  the  Confucian  books,  patient  scholars  reproduced 
them,  and  to  prevent  a  recurrence  of  such  iconoclastic  fury,  the 
Great  Confucian  Temple  and  the  Hall  of  Classics  in  Peking 
were  erected  and  the  books  were  inscribed  on  long  rows  of  stone 
monuments  so  that  they  could  never  be  destroyed  again.     As  a 


72 


New  Forces  in  Old  China 


token  of  the  present  attitude  of  the  Imperial  family,  the  Em- 
peror once  in  a  decade  proceeds  in  solemn  state  to  this  temple 
and  enthroned  there  expounds  a  passage  of  the  sacred  writings. 
For  more  than  two  millenniums,  the  boys  of  the  most  numerous 
people  in  the  world  have  committed  to  memory  the  Confucian 
primer  which  declares  that  "affection  between  father  and  son, 
concord  between  husband  and  wife,  kindness  on  the  part  of  the 
elder  brother  and  deference  on  the  part  of  the  younger,  order 
between  seniors  and  juniors,  sincerity  between  friends  and  as- 
sociates, respect  on  the  part  of  the  ruler  and  loyalty  on  that  of 
the  minister — these  are  the  ten  righteous  courses  equally  bind- 
ing on  all  men;  "  that  "the  five  regular  constituents  of  our 
moral  nature  are  benevolence,  righteousness,  propriety,  knowl- 
edge, and  truth;  "  and  that  "  the  five  blessings  are  long  life, 
wealth,  tranquillity,  desire  for  virtue  and  a  natural  death." 

Surely  these  are  noble  principles.  That  their  influence  has 
been  beneficial  in  many  respects,  it  would  be  folly  to  deny. 
They  have  lifted  the  Chinese  above  the  level  of  many  other 
Asiatic  nations  by  creating  a  more  stable  social  order,  by  incul- 
cating respect  for  parents  and  rulers,  and  by  so  honouring  the 
mother  that  woman  has  a  higher  position  in  China  than  in  most 
other  non-Christian  lands. 

And  yet  Confucianism  has  been  and  is  the  most  formidable 
obstacle  to  the  regeneration  of  China.  While  it  teaches  some 
great  truths,  it  ignores  others  that  are  vital.  It  has  lifted  the 
Chinese  above  the  level  of  barbarism  only  to  fix  them  almost 
immovably  upon  a  plane  considerably  lower  than  Christianity. 
It  has  developed  such  a  smug  satisfaction  with  existing  condi- 
tions that  millions  are  well-nigh  impervious  to  the  influences 
of  the  modern  world.  It  has  debased  respect  for  parents  into 
a  blind  worship  of  ancestors  so  that  a  dead  father,  who  may 
have  been  an  ignorant  and  vicious  man,  takes  the  place  of  the 
living  and  righteous  God.  It  has  fostered  not  only  premature 
marriages  but  concubinage  in  the  anxiety  to  have  sons  who 
will  care  for  parents  in  age  and  minister  to  them  after  death. 


At  the  Grave  of  Confucius  73 

It  makes  the  child  virtually  a  slave  to  the  caprice  or  passion  of 
the  parent.  It  leads  to  a  reverence  for  the  past  that  makes 
change  a  disrespect  to  the  dead,  so  that  all  progress  is  made 
exceedingly  difficult  and  society  becomes  fossilized.  "What- 
ever is  is  right  "  and  "  custom  "  is  sacred.  Man  is  led  so  to 
centralize  his  thought  on  his  own  family  that  he  becomes  selfish 
and  provincial  in  spirit  and  conduct,  with  no  outlook  beyond 
his  own  narrow  sphere.  Expenditures  which  the  poor  can  ill- 
afford  are  remorselessly  exacted  for  the  maintenance  of  ancestral 
worship  so  that  the  living  are  often  impoverished  for  the  sake 
of  the  dead.  ^151,752,000  annually,  ancestral  worship  is  said 
to  cost — a  heavy  drain  upon  a  people  the  majority  of  whom 
spend  their  lives  in  the  most  abject  poverty,  while  the  develop- 
ment of  true  patriotism  and  a  strong  and  well-governed  State  has 
been  effectively  prevented  by  making  the  individual  solicitous 
only  for  his  own  family  and  callously  indifferent  to  the  welfare 
of  his  country,  Confucianism  therefore  is  China's  weakness 
as  well  as  China's  strength,  the  foe  of  all  progress,  the  stagna- 
tion of  all  life. 

Confucianism,  too,  halts  on  the  threshold  of  life's  profound- 
est  problems.  It  has  only  dead  maxims  for  the  hour  of  deepest 
need.  It  gives  no  vision  of  a  future  beyond  the  grave.  It  is 
virtually  an  agnostic  code  of  morals  with  some  racial  varia- 
tions. Wu  Ting  Fang,  formerly  Chinese  Minister  to  the 
United  States,  frankly  declares  that  "  Confucianism  is  not  a  re- 
ligion in  the  practical  sense  of  the  word,"  and  that  "Confu- 
cius would  be  called  an  agnostic  in  these  days."  To  "the 
Venerable  Teacher  "  himself,  philosophy  opened  no  door  of 
hope.  Asked  about  this  one  day  by  a  troubled  inquirer,  he 
dismissed  the  question  with  the  characteristic  aphorism — "Im- 
perfectly acquainted  with  life,  how  can  we  know  death?" 
And  there  the  myriad  millions  of  Confucianists  have  dully 
stood  ever  since,  their  faces  towards  the  dead  past,  the  future 
a  darkness  out  of  which  no  voice  comes. 

But  just  because  their  illustrious  guide  took  them  to  the 


y4  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

verge  of  the  dark  unknown  and  left  them  there,  other  teachers 
came  in  to  occupy  the  region  left  so  invitingly  open.  Less 
rational  than  Confucius,  their  success  showed  anew  that  the 
human  mind  cannot  rest  in  a  spiritual  vacuum  and  that  if 
faith  does  not  enter,  superstition  will.  Taoism  and  Buddhism 
proceeded  to  people  the  air  and  the  future  with  strange  and 
awful  shapes.  Popular  Chinese  belief  as  to  the  future  is  grew- 
somely  illustrated  in  the  Temple  of  Horrors  in  Canton  with  its 
formidable  collection  of  wooden  figures  illustrating  the  various 
modes  of  punishment — sawing,  decapitation,  boiling  in  oil, 
covering  with  a  hot  bell,  etc.  At  funerals,  bits  of  perforated 
paper  are  freely  scattered  about  in  the  hope  that  the  inquisitive 
spirits  will  stop  to  examine  them  and  thus  give  the  body  a 
chance  to  pass.  In  any  Chinese  cemetery,  one  may  see  little 
tables  in  front  of  the  graves  covered  with  tea,  sweetmeats  and 
sheets  of  gilt  and  silver  paper,  so  that  if  a  spirit  is  hungry, 
thirsty  or  in  need  of  funds,  it  can  get  drink,  food  or  money 
from  the  gold  or  silver  mines  (paper). 

In  the  Temple  for  Sickness,  in  Canton,  where  multitudes  of 
sufferers  pray  to  the  gods  for  healing,  we  saw  an  old  woman 
kneeling  before  a  statue  of  Buddha,  holding  aloft  two  blocks  of 
wood  and  then  throwing  them  to  the  floor.  If  the  flat  side  of 
one  and  the  oval  side  of  the  other  were  uppermost,  the  omen 
was  good,  but  if  the  same  sides  were  up,  it  was  bad.  Others 
shook  a  box  of  numbered  sticks  till  one  popped  out  and  then 
a  paper  bearing  the  corresponding  number  gave  the  issue  of  the 
disease.  The  stones  of  the  court  were  worn  by  many  feet  and 
the  pathos  of  the  place  was  pitiful. 

Theoretically,  "  Confucianism  is  a  system  of  morals,  Taoism 
a  deification  of  nature  and  Buddhism  a  system  of  metaphysics. 
But  in  practice  all  three  have  undergone  many  modifications. 
.  .  .  With  every  age  the  character  of  Taoism  has  changed. 
The  philosophy  of  its  founder  is  now  only  an  antiquarian  curi- 
osity. Modern  Taoism  is  of  such  a  motley  character  as  almost 
to  defy  any  attempt  to  educe  a  well-ordered  system  from  its 


At  the  Grave  of  Confucius  75 

chaos."  ^  As  for  Buddhism,  its  founder  would  not  recognize 
it,  if  he  could  visit  China  to-day.     The  lines  : — 

"  Ten  Buddhist  nuns,  and  nine  are  bad ; 
The  odd  one  left  is  doubtless  mad " 

are  suggestive  of  the  depth  to  which  the  religion  of  Guatama 
has  fallen. 

Indeed,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  Chinese 
people  are  divided  into  three  religious  bodies  as,  for  example, 
Americans  are  divided  into  Protestants,  Roman  Catholics  and 
Jews.  Each  individual  Chinese  is  at  the  same  time  a  Con- 
fucian, a  Buddhist  and  a  Taoist,  observing  the  ceremonies  of 
all  three  faiths  as  circumstances  may  require,  a  Confucian 
when  he  worships  his  ancestors,  a  Buddhist  when  he  implores 
the  aid  of  the  Goddess  of  Mercy,  and  a  Taoist  when  he  seeks 
to  propitiate  the  omnipresent  fung-shuy  (spirits  of  wind  and 
water),  and  he  has  no  more  thought  of  inconsistency  than  an 
American  who  is  at  the  same  time  a  Methodist,  a  Republican 
and  a  Mason.  Dr.  S.  H.  Chester  says  that  when  he  was  in 
Shanghai,  he  saw  a  Taoist  priest  conducting  Confucian  worship 
in  a  Buddhist  temple.  Even  if  inconsistency  were  proved  to 
the  Chinese,  he  would  not  be  in  the  least  disturbed  for  he  cares 
nothing  for  such  considerations.  "  Hence  it  is  that  the  Chi- 
nese religion  of  to-day  has  become  an  inextricable  blending  of 
the  three  systems."  ^  "  The  ancient  simplicity  of  the  state  re- 
ligion has  been  so  far  corrupted  as  to  combine  in  one  ritual 
gods,  ghosts,  flags  and  cannon.  It  has  become  at  once  essen- 
tially polytheistic  and  pantheistic."* 

The  result  is  that  the  average  Chinese  lives  a  life  of  terror 
under  the  sway  of  imaginary  demons.  He  erects  a  rectangular 
pillar  in  front  of  his  door  so  that  the  dreaded  spirits  cannot 
enter  his  house  without  making  an  impossible  turn.     He  gives 

'Smith,  "Rex  Christus,"  pp.  62,  72. 

'  Gibson,  "  Mission  Methods  and  Mission  Policy  in  South  China." 

'Williams,  "  Middle  Kingdom." 


^6  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

his  tiled  roof  an  upward  slant  at  each  of  the  eaves  so  that  any 
spirit  attempting  to  descend  will  be  shunted  off  into  space. 
Nor  is  this  superstition  confined  to  the  lower  classes.  The 
haughty,  foreign-travelled  Li  Hung  Chang  abjecdy  grovelled 
on  the  bank  of  the  Yellow  River  to  propitiate  an  alleged  demon 
that  was  believed  to  be  the  cause  of  a  disastrous  flood,  and  as 
late  as  June  4,  1903,  the  North- China  Daily  News  published 
the  following  imperial  decree  : 

'<  Owing  to  the  continued  drought,  in  spite  of  our  prayers  for  rain,  we 
hereby  command  Chen  Pih,  Governor  of  Peking,  to  proceed  to  the  Dragon 
temple  at  Kanshan-hsien,  Chih-li  Province,  and  bring  from  thence  to 
Peking  an  iron  tablet  possessing  rain-producing  virtues,  which  we  will 
place  up  for  adoration  and  thereby  bring  forth  the  much-desired  rain." 

And  so  the  followers  of  the  most  "  rational  "  of  teachers  are 
among  the  most  superstitious  people  in  the  world.  In  attempt- 
ing to  clear  the  mind  of  error,  the  great  agnostic  simply  left  it 
"  empty,  swept  and  garnished  for  seven  other  spirits  worse  than 
the  first." 

As  in  the  deepening  twilight  we  thoughtfully  left  the  last 
resting-place  of  the  mighty  dead,  a  platoon  of  thirty  Chinese 
soldiers  approached,  drew  their  swords,  dropped  upon  one 
knee  and  shouted.  The  movement  was  so  unexpected  and  the 
shout  so  startlingly  strident  that  my  horse  shied  in  terror  and  I 
had  visions  of  immediate  massacre.  But  having  learned  that 
politeness  is  current  coin  the  world  over,  as  soon  as  I  could 
control  ray  prancing  horse,  I  raised  my  hat  and  bowed. 
Whereupon  the  soldiers  rose,  wheeled  into  line  and  marched 
ahead  of  us  to  our  inn  in  the  city.  Dr.  Johnson  explained  that 
the  words  shouted  in  unison  were  :  "  May  the  Great  Man  have 
Peace,"  and  that  the  platoon  was  an  escort  of  honour  from  the 
yamen  of  the  district  magistrate  ! 

On  the  way,  we  stopped  to  visit  the  temple  of  Yen,  the 
famous  disciple  of  Confucius  who  mourned  for  his  master  six 
years.  The  grounds  are  spacious.  There  is  a  remarkably  fine 
tree,  tall,  graceful  and  with  silvery  white  bark.     A  huge  stone 


At  the  Grave  of  Confucius  77 

turtle  was  reverently  kissed  by  one  of  our  escort,  who  fondly 
believed  that  he  who  kissed  the  turtle's  mouth  would  never  be 
ill.  But  as  usual  in  China,  the  temple  itself,  though  originally 
it  must  have  been  beautiful,  is  now  crumbling  in  decay. 

It  was  late  when  we  returned,  and  as  we  were  about  to  retire, 
wearied  with  the  toils  of  the  day,  the  district  magistrate  called 
with  an  imposing  retinue  and  cordially  inquired  whether  we 
had  seen  all  that  we  wished  to  see.  When  we  replied  that  we 
had  been  unable  to  enter  the  great  temple,  he  graciously  said 
that  he  would  have  pleasure  in  informing  the  Duke,  who  would 
be  sure  to  arrange  for  our  visit.  The  result  was  a  message  at 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  the  effect  that  we  might  visit  the 
temple  at  daylight  in  the  interval  between  the  cessation  of  the 
sacrifices  of  the  night  and  their  resumption  at  seven  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  Accordingly  we  rose  at  three  o'clock,  and  after 
a  hurried  breakfast  by  candle-light,  we  proceeded  to  the  temple. 
About  a  hundred  Chinese  were  awaiting  us,  among  them  two 
men  in  official  dress.  We  did  not  deem  it  courteous  to  ask 
who  or  what  they  were,  but  we  supposed  them  to  be  from  the 
magistrate's  yamen,  and  as  they  were  evidently  familiar  with 
the  temple,  we  gladly  complied  with  their  cordial  invitation  to 
follow  them. 

I  wish  I  had  power  to  describe  adequately  all  we  saw  in  that 
vast  enclosure  of  about  thirty  acres,  with  its  stately  trees,  its 
paved  avenues,  its  massive  monuments,  and,  above  all,  its 
imposing  temple  and  scores  of  related  buildings.  One  was  the 
Lieh  Kew  Kwei  Chang  Tien,  the  Temple  of  the  Wall  of  the 
Many  Countries.  Here  are  1 20  tablets,  each  about  sixteen  by 
twenty-two  inches,  and  in  the  centre  three  larger  ones  measur- 
ing two  feet  in  width  by  four  and  a-half  feet  in  height.  In 
front  of  these  is  a  stone  three  and  a-half  feet  by  four  and  a-half, 
and  bearing  the  inscription  :  "  Tribute  from  the  Ten  Thousand 
Countries  of  the  World."  The  Chinese  solemnly  believe  that 
in  these  tablets  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  have  acknowledged 
the  preeminence  of  Confucius. 


jS  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Then  we  visited  three  gloomy  buildings  where  the  animals  for 
sacrifice  are  killed — one  for  cattle,  one  for  sheep  and  one  for 
pigs.  Beyond  them,  we  entered  temples  to  the  wife  of  Con- 
fucius, to  his  parents  and  to  the  "  Five  Generations  of 
Ancestors,"  though  the  last-mentioned  contains  tablets  to  nine 
generations  instead  of  five.  On  every  side  are  scores  of  monu- 
ments, erected  by  or  in  honour  of  famous  kings,  some  of  them 
by  the  monarchs  of  dynasties  which  flourished  before  the  Chris- 
tian era. 

Most  notable  of  all  is  the  great  temple  of  the  sage  himself, 
standing  well  back  on  a  spacious  stone-paved  terrace,  around 
which  runs  a  handsome  marble  balustrade.  The  eye  is  at  once 
arrested  by  the  twenty-eight  noble  marble  pillars,  ten  in  front, 
ten  in  the  rear  and  four  at  each  end.  The  ten  in  front  are 
round  and  elaborately  carved,  as  magnificent  a  series  of  columns 
as  I  ever  saw.  The  others  are  smooth,  octagonal  pillars,  but 
traced  with  various  designs  in  black. 

Within,  there  are  twelve  other  columns  about  four  feet  in 
diameter  and  twenty-five  feet  high,  each  cut  from  a  single  tree 
and  beautifully  polished.  Naturally,  the  central  object  of 
interest  is  a  figure  of  Confucius  of  heroic  size  but  impossible 
features.  In  front  is  the  tablet  with  costly  lacquered  orna- 
ments and  pedestals,  and  an  altar  on  which  were  a  bullock  and 
two  pigs,  each  carefully  scraped  and  dressed  and  lying  with 
heads  towards  the  statue  and  tablet.  In  several  other  temples, 
notably  in  the  one  to  the  Five  Generations  of  Ancestors,  other 
animals  were  lying,  some  evidently  offered  the  day  before  and 
others  awaiting  the  worship  of  the  day  now  beginning. 
Altogether  I  counted  nineteen  sacrificial  animals — one  bullock, 
eight  sheep  and  ten  pigs.  The  great  temple  is  of  noble  pro- 
portions, with  an  overhanging  roof  of  enormous  size  but  con- 
structed on  such  graceful  lines  as  to  be  exquisitely  beautiful. 
But  within  dust  reigns,  while  without  as  usual  the  grass  and 
weeds  grow  unchecked. 

Last  of  all  we  visited   the  library,  though  the  name  is  a 


At  the  Grave  of  Confucius 


79 


misnomer,  for  there  are  no  books  in  it  and  our  courteous  guides 
said  there  never  had  been.  We  ascended  the  narrow  stairs 
leading  from  the  vast,  empty,  dusty  room  on  the  lower  floor 
through  an  equally  empty  second  story  to  the  third  and  top- 
most story,  which  is  the  home  of  hundreds  of  doves.  Going 
out  on  the  narrow  balustrade  under  the  eaves  in  the  gray  dawn 
of  the  morning,  I  looked  upon  the  gorgeous  gilded  roof  of  the 
temple  near  by  and  then  down  upon  the  many  ancient  build- 
ings, the  darkly  solemn  pines,  the  massive  monuments  resting 
on  ponderous  stone  turtles,  and  the  group  of  Chinese  standing 
among  the  shadows  and  with  faces  turned  curiously  upward. 
Suddenly  a  dove  flew  over  my  head  and  then  the  sun  rose 
slowly  and  majestically  above  the  sombre  tree-tops,  throwing 
splendid  floods  of  light  upon  us  who  stood  aloft.  But  the 
Chinese  below  were  in  the  sombre  shades  of  a  night  that  for 
them  had  not  yet  fully  ended.  I  would  fain  believe  that  the 
physical  was  a  parable  of  the  spiritual.  All  the  maxims  of  the 
Acme  of  Perfection  and  Learning-Promoting  King  have  not 
brought  the  Chinese  out  of  moral  twilight.  After  all  these 
centuries  of  ceaseless  toil,  they  still  remain  amid  the  mists  and 
shadows.  But  their  faces  are  beginning  to  turn  towards  the 
light  of  a  day  whose  sun  already  touches  the  mountain-tops. 
Some  even  now  are  in  that  "  marvellous  light,"  and  it  cannot 
be  long  before  shining  hosts  of  God  shall  pour  down  the 
mountainsides,  chasing  on  noiseless  feet  and  across  wide  plains 
the  swiftly  retreating  night  "until  the  day  dawn  and  the 
shadows  flee  away." 

At  the  outer  gate,  we  bade  good-bye  to  the  dignified  officials 
who  had  so  hospitably  conducted  us  through  this  venerable  and 
historic  place  and  who  had  taken  such  kindly  pains  to  explain 
its  ancient  relics  and  customs.  Who  were  they  ?  we  secretly 
wondered.  Imagine  our  feelings  when  the  lieutenant  in  com- 
mand of  our  escort  afterwards  informed  us  that  they  were  the 
guardian  of  the  temple  and  the  Duke  himself ! 

Leaving  the  city  of  the  mighty  dead,  we  journeyed  through 


mm.  *i  iiiii 


8o  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

a  lovely  region  guarded  by  distant  mountains.  At  the  walled 
city  of  Si-sui,  sixty  li  distant,  soldiers  met  us  and  apparently 
the  whole  population  lined  the  streets  as  we  rode  to  our  inn, 
where  the  yamen  secretary  was  awaiting  us  with  a  feast. 
This  inn,  too,  had  been  specially  cleaned,  and  there  were 
cushions,  red  cloths  for  the  seats,  and  a  screen  for  the  door. 
In  the  afternoon,  the  country  became  rougher.  But  while  the 
soil  was  thinner,  the  scenery  was  finer,  an  undulating  region 
traversed  by  a  shining  river  and  bounded  by  mountains 
which  gradually  drew  nearer.  One  hundred  and  ten  li  from 
Ku-fu,  we  stopped  for  the  night  at  Pien-kiao,  a  small  city  with 
an  unusually  poor  inn  but  a  magnificent  spring.  It  gushed  up 
over  an  area  twenty-five  feet  square  and  with  such  volume  that 
the  stream  ran  away  like  a  mill-race.  The  Emperor  Kien  Lung 
built  a  retaining  wall  about  the  spring  and  a  temple  and  summer- 
house  adjoining.  The  wall  is  as  solid  as  ever,  but  only  a 
few  crumbling  pillars  and  fragments  remain  of  the  temple  and 
pavilion.  The  Emperor  affirmed  that  he  was  told  in  a  vision 
that  if  he  would  build  a  stone  boat,  the  waters  of  the  spring 
would  float  it  to  Nanking  whither  he  wished  to  go.  So  he 
built  the  boat  of  heavy  cut  stone,  with  a  twelve-foot  beam  and 
a  length  of  fifty-five  feet.  It  is  still  there  with  the  prow  five 
feet  above  the  ground,  but  the  rest  of  the  boat  has  sunk  almost 
to  the  level  of  the  earth  about  it.  Is  the  old  Emperor's  idea  any 
more  absurd  to  us  than  our  iron  boats  would  have  been  to  him  ? 
The  sun  struggled  long  with  heavy  mists  the  following  morn- 
ing and  the  air  was  so  cool  that  I  had  to  wrap  myself  in  a 
blanket  in  the  shendza.  By  eight,  the  sun  gained  the  victory 
and  we  had  another  breezy,  perfect  June  day.  But  the  road 
was  stony  and  trying  beyond  anything  we  had  yet  seen.  The 
villages  were  evidently  poorer,  as  might  be  expected  on  such  a 
rocky  soil.  The  people  stared  silently  and  did  not  so  often  re- 
turn my  smiles.  Whether  they  were  sullen  or  simply  boorish 
and  unaccustomed  to  foreigners  I  could  only  conjecture.  Few 
white  men  had  been  seen  there. 


At  the  Grave  of  Confucius  8l 

A  hard  day's  journey  of  140  li  through  a  rocky  region 
brought  us  to  Fei-hsien.  Rain  was  falHng  the  next  morning 
and  the  Chinese  muleteers  do  not  like  to  travel  in  rain.  But 
the  prospect  was  for  a  steady  pour  and  as  we  were  in  a  wretched 
inn  and  only  ninety  li  from  Ichou-fu,  we  wanted  to  go  on. 
A  present  of  600  small  cash  for  each  muleteer  (twenty 
cents)  overcame  all  scruples.  Just  as  I  had  comfortably 
ensconced  myself  in  my  shendza  with  an  oilcloth  on  top  and  a 
rubber  blanket  in  front,  I  saw  a  centipede  on  my  leg,  but  I 
managed  to  slay  him  before  he  bit  me.  By  nine,  the  rain 
ceased  and  though  the  clouds  still  threatened,  we  had  a  cool 
and  comfortable  ride  through  hundreds  of  fields  of  peanuts, 
indigo  and  millet  to  I-tang,  where  we  stopped  for  tiffin  at  a 
squalid  inn  kept  by  a  tall,  dilapidated  looking  Chinese,  who  re- 
joiced in  the  name  of  Confucius.  He  was  really  a  descendant 
of  the  sage  and  was  very  proud  of  the  fact  that  his  bones  were 
in  due  time  to  rest  in  the  sacred  cemetery  at  Ku-fu. 

By  5:40  p.  M.  we  reached  Ichou-fu,  where  the  solitary  Rev. 
W.  W.  Faris  was  glad  to  see  another  white  man.  A 
stay  of  several  days  was  marked  by  many  pleasant  incidents. 
There  was  much  of  interest  for  a  visitor  to  see.  The  mission 
work  at  Ichou-fu,  Presbyterian,  includes  two  hospitals,  one  for 
men  and  one  for  women,  a  chapel  and  separate  day  schools  for 
boys  and  girls.  The  church  has  about  a  hundred  members 
and  in  the  outstations  there  are  ten  other  organized  churches 
besides  ten  unorganized  congregations.  All  these  churches 
and  congregations  provide  their  own  chapels  and  pay  their  own 
running  expenses.  Here  also  the  officials  were  most  courteous. 
The  Prefect,  who  promptly  called  with  a  retinue  of  fifty 
soldiers  and  attendants,  was  a  masterful  looking  man  who 
conversed  with  intelligence  on  a  wide  variety  of  topics.  The 
day  before  our  departure,  we  gave  a  feast  to  the  leading  men 
of  the  city  in  return  for  their  many  courtesies.  Every  invita- 
tion was  accepted  and  thirty-five  guests  were  present.  They 
remained  till  late  and  were  apparently  highly  pleased. 


82  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Late  in  the  evening,  a  youth  who  had  painfully  walked  i8o 
li,  came  to  Dr.  Johnson's  dispensary  and  presented  the  follow- 
ing note  of  introduction  : 

"Our  office  a  servant  who  getting  a  yellow  sick,  which 
suffered  a  few  year  and  cured  for  nothing,  he  trusted  me  to 
beg  you  to  save  his  sick  and  I  now  ordered  him  to  going  be- 
fore you  to  beg  you  remedy  facely.     With  many  thanks  to  you, 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"V.  T.  Gee." 

Having  done  all  that  was  possible  in  so  short  a  time  to 
"save  his  sick,"  we  resumed  our  journey,  thirty  Chinese 
Christians  accompanying  us  to  the  River  I,  a  li  from  the  city. 
The  atmosphere  was  gloriously  clear  and  on  the  second  day 
out,  crossing  some  high  ridges,  we  had  superb  views  of  wide 
cultivated  valleys,  and  of  Ku-chou,  a  famous  city  that  is  said 
to  contain  more  literary  graduates  than  any  other  city  of  its 
size  in  the  province. 

Then  followed  a  more  level  country  with  interminable  fields 
of  kao-liang  and  many  orchards  of  walnuts,  pears  and  cherries, 
while  low  mountains  rose  in  the  background.  Men  and  horses 
were  tired  after  our  long  and  hard  journey,  and  the  mules' 
backs  were  becoming  very  sore.  But  the  end  drew  near  and 
the  fifth  day  from  Icho\v-fu  we  reached  Yueh-kou,  the  border 
of  the  German  hinterland.  The  German  line  is  near  Kiao- 
chou,  but  the  rule  is  that  Chinese  soldiers  must  not  come  be- 
yond this  point,  loo  li  from  the  line,  and  that  German 
soldiers  shall  not  cross  it  going  the  other  way  except  on  the  line 
of  the  railroad.  Here  therefore  our  escort  had  to  leave  us,  as 
Chinese  and  Germans  have  agreed  that  any  armed  men  cross- 
ing the  line  may  be  fired  on,  and  even  if  there  should  be  no 
casualty,  both  the  German  and  Chinese  authorities  might  justly 
have  protested  if  Americans  violated  the  compact.  I  suggested 
going  on  without  an  escort  to  our  proposed  night  stop  thirty 
li  further.  But  my  more  experienced  companions  thought  it 
dangerous  to  spend  the  night  alone  at  an  inn  within  this  belt, 


At  the  Grave  of  Confucius  83 

as  the  villagers  near  the  line  were  as  bitter  against  foreigners 
as  any  in  the  province,  the  German  brusqueness  and  ruth- 
lessness  having  greatly  exasperated  them. 

So  we  spent  the  night  at  Yueh-kou,  No  one  interfered  with 
us  the  next  day  and  by  getting  an  early  start,  we  covered  ninety 
long  li  to  Kiao-chou  by  noon.  After  five  weeks  in  a  mule 
litter,  it  seemed  wonderful  to  make  138  li  in  three  hours  in  a 
railway  car.  By  6:50  p.  M.,  we  reached  Tsing-tau,  having, 
the  missionaries  said,  succeeded  in  "hustling  the  East  to  a 
remarkable  degree."  My  note-book  reads — "A  bath,  clean 
clothes,  a  hot  supper  and  a  good  night's  sleep  removed  the 
last  vestige  of  weariness." 


VII 

SOME    EXPERIENCES    OF  A   TRAVELLER— FEASTS, 
INNS  AND  SOLDIERS 


T 


"^HE  hardships  of  interior  travelling  were  less  than  I 
had  supposed.  It  is  true  that  there  were  many  ex- 
periences which,  if  enumerated,  would  make  a  for- 
midable list.  But  each  as  it  arose  appeared  insignificant.  As  a 
whole,  the  trip  was  as  enjoyable  as  any  vacation  tour.  The 
weather  was  as  a  rule  fine.  The  sun  was  often  hot  in  the 
middle  of  the  day,  but  cool  breezes  usually  tempered  the  heat 
of  the  afternoon,  while  the  nights  required  the  protection  of 
blankets.  There  was  some  rain  at  times,  but  not  enough  to 
impede  seriously  our  progress.  It  was  altogether  the  most 
perfect  May  and  June  weather  I  have  ever  seen.  Nor  was  it 
exceptional,  according  to  Dr.  Charles  Johnson  who  has  spent 
many  years  in  North  China.  But  of  course  I  saw  Shantung 
at  its  most  favourable  period.  July  and  August  are  wet  and 
hot,  while  the  winters  are  clear  and  cold. 

I  found  a  trunk  an  unmitigated  nuisance.  Though  it  was 
made  to  order  for  a  pack-mule,  no  pack-mules  could  be  hired  in 
that  harvest  season,  and  the  trunk  was  too  heavy  for  one  side 
of  a  donkey,  even  after  transferring  all  practicable  articles  to 
the  shendza.  So  it  had  to  be  put  in  a  cart,  and  as  a  cart  can- 
not keep  up  with  a  shendza,  I  was  often  separated  from  my 
trunk  for  days  at  a  time.  Besides,  a  couple  valises  would  have 
held  all  necessary  clothing  anyway.  I  took  a  light  folding  cot 
and  a  bag  held  a  thin  mattress,  small  pillow,  sheets  and  two 
light  blankets,  so  that  I  had  a  very  comfortable  bed  under  the 
always  necessary  mosquito  net. 

84 


Some  Experiences  of  a  Traveller  85 

We  also  took  a  supply  of  tinned  food  to  which  we  could 
usually  add  by  purchase  en  route  chickens  and  eggs,  while  oc- 
casionally in  the  proper  season,  we  could  secure  string-beans, 
onions,  cucumbers,  apricots,  peanuts,  walnuts  and  radishes. 
So  we  fared  well.  The  native  food  cannot  be  wisely  depended 
upon  by  a  foreigner.  He  cannot  maintain  his  strength,  as  the 
poorer  Chinese  do,  on  a  diet  of  rice  and  unleavened  bread, 
while  the  food  of  the  well-to-do  classes,  when  it  can  be  had,  is 
apt  to  be  so  greasy  and  peculiar  as  to  incite  his  digestive  ap- 
paratus to  revolt.  Indeed,  a  Chinese  feast  is  one  of  his  most 
serious  experiences.  Most  heartily,  indeed,  did  I  appreciate 
the  kindly  motives  of  the  magistrates  who  invited  me  to  these 
feasts,  for  their  purpose  was  as  generously  hospitable  as  the 
purpose  of  any  American  who  invites  a  visitor  to  dinner.  But 
the  Chinese  bill-of-fare  includes  dishes  that  are  rather  trying  to 
a  Christian  palate,  and  good  form  requires  the  guest  to  taste  at 
least  each  dish,  for  if  he  fails  to  do  so,  he  makes  his  host 
"lose  face" — a  serious  breach  of  etiquette  in  China.  For 
example,  here  is  the  menu  of  a  typical  Chinese  feast  to  which 
I  was  invited,  the  dishes  being  served  in  the  order  given, 
sweets  coming  first  and  soup  towards  the  last  in  this  land  of 
topsy-turveydom : 

1.  Small  cakes  (five  kinds),  sliced  pears,  candied  peanuts, 
raw  water-chestnuts,  cooked  water-chestnuts,  hard-boiled  ducks' 
eggs  (cut  into  small  pieces),  candied  walnuts,  honied  walnuts, 
shredded  chicken,  apricot  seeds,  sliced  pickled  plums,  sliced 
dried  smoked  ham  (cut  into  tiny  pieces),  shredded  sea  moss, 
watermelon  seeds,  shrimps,  bamboo  sprouts,  jellied  haws.  All 
the  above  dishes  were  cold.     Then  followed  hot : 

2.  Shrimps  served  in  the  shell  with  vinegar,  sea-slugs  with 
shredded  chicken,  bits  of  sweetened  pork  and  shredded  dough 
— the  pork  and  sea-slugs  being  cooked  and  served  in  fragrant 
oil. 

3.  Bamboo  sprouts,  stewed  chicken  kidneys. 

4.  Spring  chicken  cooked  crisp  in  oil. 


86  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

5.  Stewed  sea-slugs  with  ginger  root  and  bean  curd, 
stewed  fungus  with  reed  roots  and  ginger  tops  (all  hot). 

6.  Tarts  with  candied  jelly,  sugar  dumplings  with  dates. 

7.  Hot  pudding  made  of  "  the  eight  precious  vegetables," 
consisting  of  dates,  watermelon  seeds,  chopped  walnuts,  chopped 
chestnuts,  preserved  oranges,  lotus  seeds,  and  two  kinds  of  rice, 
all  mixed  and  served  in  syrup — a  delicious  dish. 

8.  Shelled  shrimps  with  roots  of  reeds  and  bits  of  hard- 
boiled  eggs,  all  in  one  bowl  with  fragrant  oil,  biscuits  coated 
with  sweet  seeds. 

9.  Glutinous  rice  in  little  layers  with  browned  sugar  be- 
tween, minced  pork  dumplings,  steamed  biscuits, 

10.  Omelette  with  sea-slugs  and  bamboo  sprouts,  all  in  oil, 
bits  of  chicken  stewed  in  oil,  pork  with  small  dumplings  of 
flour  and  starch, 

11.  Stewed  pigs'  kidneys,  shrimps  stewed  in  oil,  date  pie. 

12.  Vermicelli  and  egg  soup. 

13.  Stewed  pork  balls,  reed  roots,  bits  of  hard-boiled  yolks 
of  eggs,  all  in  oil. 

14.  Birds'  nest  soup. 

The  appetite  being  pretty  well  sated  by  this  time,  the  fol- 
lowing delicacies  were  served  to  taper  off  with  : 

15.  Chicken  boiled  in  oil,  pork  swimming  in  a  great  bowl 
of  its  own  fat,  stewed  fish  stomachs,  egg  soup. 

16.  Steamed  biscuit. 

Tea  was  served  from  the  beginning  and  throughout  the  feast. 
It  was  made  on  the  table  by  pouring  hot  water  into  a  small  pot 
half  full  of  tea  leaves,  the  pot  being  refilled  as  needed.  The 
tea  was  served  without  cream  or  sugar,  and  was  mild  and  de- 
licious. Rice  whiskey  in  tiny  cups  is  usually  served  at  feasts, 
though  it  was  often  omitted  from  the  feasts  given  to  us.  The 
Chinese  assert  that  the  alcohol  is  necessary  "  to  cut  the  grease." 
There  is  certainly  enough  grease  to  cut. 

The  guests  sit  at  small  round  tables,  each  accommodating 
about  four.     There  are,  of  course,  no  plates  or  knives  or  forks 


Some  Experiences  of  a  Traveller  87 

though  small  china  spoons  are  used  for  the  soups.  All  the 
food  is  cut  into  small  pieces  before  being  brought  to  the  table, 
so  that  no  further  cutting  is  supposed  to  be  necessary.  Each 
article  of  food  is  brought  on  in  a  single  dish,  which  is  placed 
in  the  centre  of  the  table,  and  then  each  guest  helps  himself 
out  of  the  common  dish  with  his  chop-sticks,  the  same  chop- 
sticks being  used  during  the  entire  meal.  It  is  considered  a 
mark  of  distinguished  courtesy  for  the  host  to  fish  around  in 
the  dish  with  his  own  chop-sticks  for  a  choice  morsel  and  place 
it  in  front  of  the  guest.  With  profound  emotion,  at  almost 
every  feast  that  I  attended  in  China,  I  saw  my  considerate 
hosts  take  the  chop-sticks  which  had  made  many  trips  to  their 
own  mouths,  stir  around  in  the  central  dish  for  a  particularly  fine 
titbit  and  deposit  it  on  the  table  before  me.  And  of  course, 
not  to  be  outdone  in  politeness,  I  ate  these  dainty  morsels  with 
smiles  of  gratified  pride.  As  each  of  the  Chinese  at  the  table 
deemed  himself  my  host,  and  as  the  Chinese  are  extremely 
polite  and  attentive  to  their  guests,  the  table  soon  became  wet 
and  greasy  from  the  pieces  of  pork,  slugs  and  chicken  placed 
upon  it  as  well  as  from  the  drippings  from  the  chop-sticks  in 
their  constant  trips  from  the  serving  bowls. 

However,  two  small  brass  bowls,  fitting  together,  are  placed 
beside  each  guest,  who  is  expected  to  sip  a  little  water  from  the 
upper  one,  rinse  his  mouth  with  it  and  expectorate  it  into  the 
lower  one.  The  emotion  of  the  foreign  visitor  is  intensified 
when  he  learns  that  it  is  counted  polite  to  make  all  the  noise 
possible  by  smacking  the  lips  as  a  sign  that  the  food  is  de- 
licious, sucking  the  tea  or  soup  noisily  from  the  spoon  to  show 
that  it  is  hot,  and  belching  to  show  that  it  is  enjoyed.  Often, 
a  dignified  official  would  let  his  tea  stand  until  it  was  cold,  but 
when  he  took  it  up,  he  would  suck  it  with  a  loud  noise  as  if  it 
were  scalding  hot,  as  he  was  too  polite  to  act  as  if  it  were  cold. 

But  the  American  or  European,  who  inwardly  groans  at  a 
Chinese  repast  and  who  felicitates  himself  on  the  alleged 
superior  methods  of  his  own  race,  may  well  consider  how  his 


88  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

own  customs  impress  a  Celestial.  A  Chinese  gentleman  who 
was  making  a  tour  of  Europe  and  America  wrote  to  a  relative 
in  China  as  follows  : 

"  You  cannot  civilize  these  foreign  devils.  They  are  beyond  redemp- 
tion. They  will  live  for  weeks  and  months  without  touching  a  mouthful 
of  rice,  but  they  eat  the  flesh  of  bullocks  and  sheep  in  enormous  quantities. 
That  is  why  they  smell  so  badly ;  they  smell  like  sheep  themselves. 
Every  day  they  take  a  bath  to  rid  themselves  of  their  disagreeable  odours, 
but  they  do  not  succeed.  Nor  do  they  eat  their  meat  cooked  in  small 
pieces.  It  is  carried  into  the  room  in  large  chunks,  often  half  raw,  and 
they  cut  and  slash  and  tear  it  apart.  They  eat  with  knives  and  prongs. 
It  makes  a  civilized  being  perfectly  nervous.  One  fancies  himself  in  the 
presence  of  sword-swallowers.  They  even  sit  down  at  the  same  table  with 
women,  and  the  latter  are  served  first,  reversing  the  order  of  nature," 

So  I  humbly  adapted  myself  as  best  I  could  to  Chinese  cus- 
toms and  learned  to  like  many  of  the  natives'  dishes,  though  to 
the  last,  there  were  some  that  I  merely  nibbled  to  "save  the 
face"  of  mine  host.  Some  of  the  dishes  were  really  excellent 
and  as  a  rule  all  were  well-cooked,  although  the  oil  in  which 
much  of  the  food  was  steeped  made  it  rather  greasy.  My  di- 
gestive apparatus  is  pretty  good,  but  it  would  take  a  copper- 
lined  stomach  to  partake  without  disaster  of  a  typical  Chinese 
feast.  But  for  that  matter  so  it  would  to  eat  a  traditional  New 
England  dinner  of  boiled  salt  pork,  corned  beef,  cabbage,  tur- 
nips, onions  and  potatoes,  followed  by  a  desert  of  mince  pie 
and  plum  pudding  and  all  washed  down  by  copious  draughts 
of  hard  cider. 

Chinese  inns  do  not  impoverish  even  the  economical  traveller. 
Our  bill  for  our  tiffin  stop  was  usually  loo  small  cash,  a  little 
more  than  three  cents,  for  our  entire  party  of  about  a  score  of 
men  and  animals.  For  the  night,  the  common  charge  was  700 
cash,  twenty- three  cents.  Travellers  are  expected  to  provide 
their  own  food  and  bedding  and  to  pay  a  small  extra  sum  for 
the  rice  and  fodder  used  by  their  servants  and  mules,  but  even 
then  the  cost  appears  ridiculously  small  to  a  foreigner.     Still, 


Some  Experiences  of  a  Traveller  89 

the  most  thoroughly  seasoned  traveller  can  hardly  consider  a 
Chinese  inn  a  comfortable  residence.  It  is  simply  a  rough, 
one-story  building  enclosing  an  open  courtyard.  The  rooms 
are  destitute  of  furniture  except  occasionally  a  rude  table.  The 
floor  is  the  beaten  earth,  foul  with  the  use  of  scores  and  per- 
haps hundreds  of  years.  The  windows  are  covered  with  oiled 
paper  which  admits  only  a  dim  light  and  no  air  at  all.  The 
walls  are  begrimed  with  smoke  and  covered  with  cobwebs. 
Across  the  end  of  the  room  is  the  inevitable  kang — a  brick  plat- 
form under  which  the  cooking  fire  is  built  and  on  which  the 
traveller  squats  by  day  and  sleeps  by  night.  The  unhappy 
white  man  who  has  not  been  prudent  enough  to  bring  a  cot 
with  him  feels  as  if  he  were  sleeping  on  a  hot  stove  with  "  the 
lid  off." 

The  inns  between  Ichou-fu  and  Chining-chou  were  the  poor- 
est I  saw,  and  if  a  man  has  stopped  in  one  of  them,  he  has  been 
fairly  initiated  into  the  discomforts  of  travelling  in  China.  But 
wherever  one  goes,  the  heat  and  smoke  and  bad  air,  together 
with  the  vermin  which  literally  swarms  on  the  kang  and  floor 
and  walls,  combine  to  make  a  night  in  a  Chinese  inn  an  ex- 
perience that  is  not  easily  forgotten.  However,  the  foreign 
traveller  soon  learns,  perforce,  to  be  less  fastidious  than  at  home 
and  I  found  myself  hungry  enough  to  eat  heartily  and  tired 
enough  to  sleep  soundly  in  spite  of  the  dirt  and  bugs.  But  the 
heat  and  bad  air  as  the  summer  advanced  were  not  so  easily 
mastered,  and  so  I  began  to  sleep  in  the  open  courtyard,  find- 
ing chattering  Chinese  and  squealing  mules  less  objectionable 
than  the  foul-smelling,  vermin-infested  inns,  since  outside  I  had 
at  least  plenty  of  cool,  fresh  air. 

There  is  no  privacy  in  a  Chinese  inn.  The  doors,  when 
there  are  any,  are  innocent  of  locks  and  keys,  while  the  Chinese 
guests  as  well  as  the  innkeeper's  family  and  the  people  of  the 
neighbourhood  have  an  inquisitiveness  that  is  not  in  the  least 
tempered  by  bashfulness.  But  nothing  was  ever  stolen,  though 
some  of  our  supplies  must  have  been  attractive  to  many  of  the 


go  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

poverty  stricken  men  who  crowded  about  us.  On  one  oc- 
casion, an  inn-employee,  who  was  sent  to  exchange  a  bank-note 
for  cash,  did  not  return.  There  was  much  excited  jabbering, 
but  Mr.  Laughlin  firmly  though  kindly  held  the  innkeeper  re- 
sponsible and  that  worthy  admitted  that  he  knew  who  had  taken 
the  money  and  refunded  it.  So  all  was  peace.  The  inn- 
keeper was  probably  in  collusion  with  the  thief.  This  was  our 
only  trouble  of  the  kind,  though  we  slept  night  after  night  in 
the  public  inns  with  all  our  goods  lying  about  wholly  unpro- 
tected. Occasionally,  especially  in  the  larger  towns,  there  was 
a  night  watchman.  But  he  was  a  noisy  nuisance.  To  con- 
vince his  employers  that  he  was  awake,  he  frequently  clapped 
together  two  pieces  of  wood.  All  night  long  that  strident 
clack,  clack,  clack,  resounded  every  few  seconds.  It  is  an  odd 
custom,  for  of  course  it  advertises  to  thieves  the  location  of  the 
watchman.  But  there  is  much  in  China  that  is  odd  to  an 
American. 

On  a  tour  in  Asia,  the  foreigner  who  does  not  wish  to  be  ill 
will  exercise  reasonable  care.  It  looks  smart  to  take  insufficient 
sleep,  snatch  a  hurried  meal  out  of  a  tin  can,  drink  unboiled 
water  and  walk  or  ride  in  the  sun  without  a  pith  hat  or  an 
umbrella.  Some  foreigners  who  ought  to  know  better  are  care- 
less about  these  things  and  good-naturedly  chaff  one  who  is 
more  particular.  But  while  one  should  not  be  unnecessarily 
fussy,  yet  if  he  is  courageous  enough  to  be  sensible,  he  will  not 
only  preserve  his  health,  but  be  physically  benefited  by  his 
tour,  while  the  heedless  man  will  probably  be  floored  by  dysen- 
tery or  even  if  he  escapes  that  scourge  will  reach  his  destination 
so  worn  out  that  he  must  take  days  or  perhaps  weeks  to  re- 
cuperate. I  was  not  ill  a  day,  made  what  Dr.  Bergen  called 
"the  record  tour  of  Shantung,"  and  came  out  in  splendid 
health  and  spirits  just  because  I  had  nerve  enough  to  insist  on 
taking  reasonable  time  for  eating  and  sleeping,  boiling  my 
drinking  water,  and  buying  the  fresh  vegetables  and  fruit  with 
which    the    country   abounded.     From   this   view-point.    Dr. 


Some  Experiences  of  a  Traveller  91 

Charles  F.  Johnson,  who  escorted  me  from  Chhiing-chou  to 
Tsing-tau,  was  a  model.  With  no  loss  of  time,  with  but  trifling 
additional  expense  and  with  comparatively  little  extra  trouble, 
he  had  an  appetizing  table,  while  water  bottles  and  fruit  tins 
were  always  cooled  in  buckets  of  well  water  so  that  they  were 
grateful  to  a  dusty,  thirsty  throat.  It  is  not  difficult  to  make 
oneself  fairly  comfortable  in  travelling  even  when  nearly  all 
modern  conveniences  are  wanting  and  it  pays  to  take  the  neces- 
sary trouble. 

Throughout  the  tour,  we  were  watched  in  a  way  that  was 
suggestive.  When  United  States  Consul  Fowler  first  told  me 
that  Governor  Yuan  Shih  Kai  would  send  a  military  escort 
with  me,  I  said  that  I  was  not  proud,  that  I  did  not  care  to  go 
through  Shantung  with  the  pomp  and  panoply  of  war,  that  I 
was  on  a  peaceful,  conciliatory  errand,  and  preferred  to  travel 
with  only  my  missionary  companions.  But  he  replied  that 
while  the  province  was  then  quiet,  no  one  could  tell  what  an 
hour  might  bring  forth,  that  in  the  tension  that  existed  even  a 
local  and  sporadic  attack  on  a  foreigner  might  be  a  signal  for  a 
new  outbreak,  that  the  Governor  was  trying  to  keep  the  people 
in  hand,  and  that  as  he  was  held  responsible  for  consequences 
he  must  be  allowed  to  have  his  own  men  in  charge  of  a  foreign 
party  that  purposed  to  journey  so  far  into  the  interior.  So,  of 
course,  I  yielded. 

When  I  lifted  up  my  eyes  and  looked  on  the  escort  at  Kiao- 
chou,  I  felt  that  my  fears  of  pomp  and  panoply  had  been 
groundless,  for  the  "escort"  consisted  of  two  disreputable- 
looking  coolies  who  had  apparendy  been  picked  up  on  the 
street  and  who  were  armed  with  antiquated  flint-locks  that 
were  more  dangerous  to  their  bearers  than  to  an  enemy.  I  am 
sure  that  these  "guards"  would  have  been  the  first  to  run  at 
the  slightest  sign  of  danger.  We  did  not  see  them  again  till 
we  reached  Kaomi,  where  we  gave  them  a  present  and  sent 
them  back,  glad  to  be  rid  of  them.  We  afterwards  learned 
that  they  were  only  the  retainers  of  the  local  Kiao-chou  yamen 


92  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

to  see  us  to  the  border  of  the  hinterland,  which  Governor 
Yuan's  troops  were  not  permitted  to  cross. 

But  the  men  who  met  us  at  the  border  were  soldiers  of 
another  type — powerful  looking  cavalrymen  on  excellent  horses. 
Remembering  the  stories  we  had  heard  regarding  the  murder 
of  foreigners  by  Chinese  troops  who  had  been  sent  ostensibly 
to  guard  them,  we  were  relieved  to  find  that  there  were  only 
three  of  them,  and  as  there  were  three  of  us,  we  felt  safe,  for  we 
believed  that  in  an  emergency  we  could  whip  them.  When 
on  leaving  Wei-hsien  the  number  increased  to  five  and  then  to 
six,  we  became  dubious.  But  we  concluded  that  as  we  were 
active,  stalwart  men,  we  might  in  a  pinch  manage  twice  our 
number  of  Chinese  soldiers  or,  if  worst  came  to  worst,  as  we 
were  unencumbered  by  women,  children  or  luggage,  we  could 
sprint,  on  the  old  maxim, 

"  He  that  fights  and  runs  away 
Will  live  to  fight  another  day." 

But  when  a  little  later,  the  force  grew  to  eleven  and  then  to 
fifteen,  we  were  hopelessly  out-classed,  especially  as  they  were 
well-mounted  and  armed  not  only  with  swords  but  with  mod- 
ern magazine  rifles. 

The  result,  however,  proved  that  our  .  _ars  were  groundless, 
for  the  men  were  good  soldiers,  intelligent,  respectful,  well- 
drilled,  and  thoroughly  disciplined.  They  treated  us  with 
strict  military  etiquette,  standing  at  attention  and  saluting  in 
the  most  approved  military  fashion  wher  'ver  they  spoke  to  us 
or  we  to  them.  I  was  not  accustomed  to  travelling  in  such 
state.  Our  three  shendzas  meant  six  nuiles  and  three  mule- 
teers, one  for  each  shendza.  Our  cook  and  "boy"  each  had 
a  donkey,  and  a  pack-mule  was  necessary  for  our  food  sup- 
plies. So  including  the  men  and  horses  of  the  escort,  we 
usually  had  nineteen  men  and  twenty  animals  and  a  part  of  the 
time  we  had  even  a  larger  number.  We  therefore  made  quite 
a  procession,  and  attracted  considerable  attention.     I  suspect, 


PART  OF  THE  AUTHOR'S  ESCORT 
OF  CHINESE  CAVALRYMEN 


WATCHING  THE  AUTHOR  WRITING  IN  HIS 
DIARY  AT  A  inOON  STOP     -     -     A  Snap   Shot 


Some  Experiences  of  a  Traveller  93 

however,  that  some  of  those  shrewd  Chinese  were  not  deceived 
as  to  my  humble  station  at  home  for  one  man  asked  the  mis- 
sionary who  accompanied  me  whether  I  travelled  with  an  escort 
in  America  ! 

The  lieutenant  commanding  our  escort  said  that  he  received 
forty-two  taels  a  month,'  the  sergeants  eleven  taels,  and  the 
privates  nine  taels.  The  men  buy  their  own  food,  but  their 
clothing,  horses,  provender,  etc.,  are  furnished  by  the  Govern- 
ment. This  is  big  pay  for  China.  The  lieutenant  further  said 
that  Governor  Yuan  Shih  Kai  had  thirty  regiments  of  a  nomi- 
nal strength  of  500  each  and  an  actual  strength  of  250,  making 
a  total  of  7,500,  and  that  the  soldiers  had  been  drilled  by 
German  officers  at  Tien-tsin.  There  are  no  foreign  officers 
now  connected  with  the  force,  but  there  are  two  foreign  edu- 
cated Chinese  who  receive  300  taels  a  month  each.  He  further 
said  that  all  the  men  with  us  had  killed  Boxers  and  that  he 
was  confident  that  they  could  rout  1,000  of  them.  An  illus- 
tration of  the  reputation  of  these  troops  occurred  during  my 
visit  in  Paoting-fu  a  little  later.  A  messenger  breathlessly 
reported  that  the  Allied  Villagers,  who  had  banded  themselves 
together  to  resist  the  collection  of  indemnity,  had  captured  a 
city  only  ninety  li  southward  and  that  they  intended  to  march 
on  Paoting-fu  itself.  Three  thousand  of  Yuan  Shih  Kai's 
troops  had  been  ordered  to  go  to  Peking  to  prepare  for  the 
return  of  the  Emperor  and  Empress  Dowager,  but  the  French 
general  at  Paoting-fu  had  forbade  them  coming  beyond  a  point 
a  hundred  li  south  of  Paoting-fu,  so  that  they  were  then  en- 
camped there  awaiting  further  orders.  The  Prefect  hastily  wired 
Viceroy  Li  Hung  Chang  in  Peking  asking  him  to  order  these 
troops  to  retake  the  recaptured  city,  as  the  Imperial  troops  were 
"  needed  here,"  a  euphemism  for  saying  that  they  were  useless. 
Li  Hung  Chang  gave  the  desired  order  and  the  seasoned  troops 
of  Yuan  Shih  Kai  made  short  work  of  the  Allied  Villagers. 

At  any  rate,  those  who  escorted  me  through  Shantung  were 
'  A  tael  equals  sixty-five  cents  at  the  present  rate  of  exchange. 


94  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

certainly  good  soldiers.  They  had  splendid  horses  and  took 
good  care  of  them,  while  several  evenings  they  gave  us  as  fine 
exhibitions  of  sword  drill  as  I  ever  saw.  I  was  interested  to 
find  that  seven  of  them  belonged  to  a  total  abstinence  society, 
though  none  of  them  were  Christians.  I  became  really  at- 
tached to  them.  They  were  very  patient,  although  my  journey 
compelled  them  to  make  a  long  and  hard  march  for  which  they 
received  no  extra  pay.  On  the  last  evening  of  the  trip,  I  gave 
them  a  feast  in  the  most  approved  Chinese  style.  I  made  a 
little  farewell  address  and  gave  the  officer  in  charge  the  follow- 
ing letter  which  seemed  to  please  them  greatly : — 

"June  27th,  1901. 
"  To  His  Excelleitcy, 

"  General  Yuan  Shih  Kai, 

"  Governor  of  the  Province  of  Shantung,  China, 
"  Sir  : 

"  In  completing  my  tour  of  the  Province  of  Shantung,  I  have  pleas- 
ure in  expressing  my  high  appreciation,  and  that  of  the  missionaries  of  the 
Presbyterian  Cliurch  who  accompanied  me,  of  the  excellent  conduct  of  the 
soldiers  who  formed  our  escort  under  the  command  of  (Lieutenant)  Wang 
Pa  Chung.  Both  he  and  his  troopers  were  courteous  and  faithful,  atten- 
tive to  every  duty  and  meriting  our  admiration  for  the  perfection  of  their 
discipline. 

"  We  regret  the  death  of  one  of  their  horses,  but  we  are  satisfied  that 
the  soldier  was  in  no  way  to  blame.  The  animal  died  in  the  inn  court- 
yard early  in  the  morning. 

"  I  have  had  pleasure  in  giving  the  officer  and  his  men  a  feast.  In 
addition  I  offered  them  a  present,  but  the  Wang  Pa  Chung  declined  to 
accept  it. 

"  Thanking  you  for  your  courtesy  in  detailing  such  good  soldiers  for 
our  escort, 

"  I  have,  sir,  the  honour  to  be 

"  Your  obedient  servant, 

(Signed)  "Arthur  J.  Brown." 

I  was  impressed  by  the  refusal  to  accept  the  present,  which 
was  a  considerable  sum  to  Chinese.  But  the  men  were  evi- 
dently under   strict   orders.     The   lieutenant  was  polite  and 


Some  Experiences  of  a  Traveller  95- 

grateful,  but  he  said  that  he  "could  not  accept  a  gift  if  it  were 
ten  thousand  taels." 

During  the  whole  tour,  these  soldiers  watched  us  with  a  fidel- 
ity that  was  almost  embarrassing  at  times.  Not  for  a  moment 
did  they  lose  sight  of  us  except  when  we  were  in  the  mission 
compounds.  If  we  took  a  walk  about  a  village,  they  followed 
us.  Eating,  sleeping  or  travelling,  we  were  always  watched. 
Several  times  we  tried  to  escape  such  espionage,  or  to  induce 
the  soldiers  to  turn  back.  We  did  not  feel  our  need  of  them, 
nor  did  I  desire  my  peaceful  mission  to  be  associated  with  mil- 
itary display.  Besides,  if  hostility  had  been  manifested,  a 
dozen  Chinese  soldiers  would  have  been  of  little  avail  among 
those  swarming  millions.  But  our  efforts  and  protests  were 
vain  and  we  had  no  alternative  but  to  submit  with  the  best 
grace  possible. 

Nor  was  this  all,  for  many  of  the  magistrates  whose  districts 
we  crossed  en  route  added  other  attentions.  Indeed,  they  ap- 
peared to  be  almost  nervously  anxious  that  no  mishap  should 
befall  us.  I  had  sent  no  announcement  of  my  coming  to  any 
one  except  my  missionary  friends,  nor  had  I  asked  for  any  favour 
or  protection  save  the  usual  passport  through  the  United  States 
Consul.  But  the  first  Tao-tai  I  met  politely  inquired  about  my 
route,  and,  as  I  afterwards  learned,  sent  word  to  the  next  mag- 
istrate. He  in  turn  forwarded  the  word  to  the  one  beyond, 
and  so  on  throughout  the  whole  trip.  As  we  approached  a 
city,  uniformed  attendants  from  the  chief  magistrate's  yamen 
usually  met  us  and  escorted  us,  sometimes  with  much  display 
of  banners  and  trumpets  and  armed  guards,  to  an  inn  which 
had  been  prepared  for  our  reception  by  having  a  little  of  its 
dirt  swept  into  the  corners  and  a  few  of  its  bugs  killed.  Then 
would  come  a  feast  of  many  courses  of  Chinese  delicacies.  A 
call  from  the  magistrate  himself  often  followed,  and  he  would 
chat  amicably  while  great  crowds  stood  silently  about. 

There  was  something  half  pathetic  about  the  attentions  we  re- 
ceived.    Our  journey  was  like  a  triumphal  procession.     For 


96  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

example,  twenty  li  from  Chang  Ku  a  messenger  on  horseback 
met  us.  He  had  evidently  been  on  the  watch,  for  after  kneel- 
ing he  galloped  back  with  the  news  of  our  approach.  Soon 
a  dozen  soldiers  in  scarlet  uniforms  appeared,  saluted,  wheeled 
and  marched  before  us  to  an  inn  where  we  found  rugs  on  the 
floor  and  kangs,  a  cloth  on  the  table  and  two  elevated  seats 
covered  with  scarlet  robes.  Attendants  from  the  yamen  with 
their  red  tasselled  helmets  were  numerous  and  attentive. 
Basins  of  water  were  brought  and  presently  the  magistrate  sent 
an  elaborate  feast.  As  we  finished  the  repast,  the  magistrate 
himself  called.  He  was  very  affable  and  made  quite  a  long 
call.  In  like  manner  the  district  magistrate  of  Fei-hsien  sent 
his  secretary,  personal  flags  and  twenty  soldiers  twenty  li  to 
meet  us.  They  knelt  as  we  approached  and  shouted  in 
unison — "We  wish  the  great  man  peace  1  "  So  as  usual  we 
entered  the  town  with  pomp  and  circumstance,  our  own  escort 
added  to  the  local  one  making  a  brave  show. 

And  these  were  typical  experiences.  We  could  not  prevent 
them  and  to  resent  them  would  have  made  the  official  "  lose 
face  "  and  so  embittered  him.  At  Pien-kiao,  where  a  hundred 
of  Governor  Yuan  Shih  Kai's  troops  were  stationed,  the  whole 
garrison  turned  out,  meeting  us  a  couple  of  miles  from  the  cily 
and  escorting  us  to  our  inn  with  blares  of  trumpets  which 
Dr.  Johnson  said  were  only  sounded  for  high  officials. 
We  were  awakened  at  three  o'clock  the  next  morning  by  the 
bellowing  of  calves  and  the  braying  of  mules  in  the  inn  court- 
yard, and  as  we  had  our  longest  day's  journey  ahead  of  us,  we 
rose,  breakfasted  at  four  by  candle-light  and  were  on  the  road 
at  a  quarter  of  five.  But  in  spite  of  the  early  hour,  the  whole 
garrison  again  turned  out  and  lined  the  road  at  "present 
arms  "  as  we  passed. 

Think  of  the  mayor  of  an  American  city  of  fifty  or  a  hun- 
dred thousand  habitants  hastening  to  call  in  state  on  three 
unknown  travellers,  who  were  simply  stopping  for  luncheon  at  a 
hotel,  and  sending  a  couple  dozen  policemen  to  escort  them  in 


Some  Experiences  of  a  Traveller  97 

and  out  of  town  !  The  Shantung  Chinese  are  a  strong,  proud, 
independent  people,  and  it  must  have  cost  them  something  to  be 
so  effusive  to  foreigners.  There  was  doubtless  in  it  some  real 
regard  for  Americans  and  American  missionaries.  But  policy 
was  probably  also  a  factor.  The  officials  felt  that  any  further 
attack  on  foreigners  would  be  a  pretext  for  further  foreign 
aggression,  an  excuse  for  Germany  to  advance  from  Kiao-chou, 
and  they  were  anxious  not  to  give  occasion  for  it.  Each 
official  was  apparently  determined  to  make  it  plain  that  he  was 
doing  his  duty  in  trying  to  protect  these  foreigners  so  that  if 
they  got  hurt  it  would  not  be  his  fault.  Perhaps,  too,  he  was 
not  averse  to  showing  the  populace  that  foreigners  had  to  be 
guarded.  I  was  half  ashamed  to  travel  in  that  way.  But  I 
could  not  help  myself.  Sometimes  I  felt  that  the  guard  was  not 
so  much  for  us  as  for  the  Chinese,  assuring  nervous  officials  that 
foreigners  should  have  no  further  excuse  for  aggression  and 
warning  the  evil-disposed  that  they  must  not  commit  acts 
which  might  get  the  officials  into  trouble. 

Whatever  the  reasons  were,  they  were  plainly  impersonal. 
No  one  of  us  had  any  official  status  nor  were  we  as  individuals 
of  any  consequence  whatever  to  Chinese  officials.  We  were 
simply  white  men  and  as  such  we  were  regarded  as  repre- 
sentatives of  a  race  which  had  made  its  power  felt.  Perhaps 
the  soldiers  and  the  orders  of  Governor  Yuan  Shih  Kai  had 
much  to  do  with  the  quietness  of  the  people,  but  some  way 
I  felt  perfectly  safe.  Whether  any  attack  would  have  been 
made  if  I  had  been  allowed  to  journey  quietly  with  my  one  or 
two  missionary  companions,  I  am  not  competent  to  judge. 
Foreigners  who  had  lived  many  years  in  China  told  me  before 
starting  that  my  life  would  not  be  safe  beyond  rifle  shot. 
They  have  told  me  since  that  the  profuse  attentions  that  we  re- 
ceived were  mere  pretence,  that  the  very  officials  who  wel- 
comed us  as  honoured  guests  probably  cursed  our  race  as  soon 
as  our  backs  were  turned,  and  that  if  the  people  had  not  un- 
derstood from  the  presence  of  troops  and  from  the  magistrates' 


c)8  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

marked  personal  attentions  that  we  were  not  to  be  molested, 
we  might  have  met  with  violence  in  a  dozen  places.  The 
opinions  of  such  experienced  men  were  not  to  be  lightly  set 
aside. 

All  I  can  say  is  that  on  these  suppositions  the  Chinese  are 
masters  of  the  art  of  dissimulation,  for  in  all  our  journeyings 
through  the  very  heart  of  the  region  where  the  Boxers  origi- 
nated, and  where  the  anti-foreign  hatred  was  said  to  be  bitter- 
est, we  saw  not  a  sign  of  unfriendliness.  The  typical  ofificial  re- 
ceived us  with  the  courtesy  of  a  "gentleman  of  the  old  school." 
The  vast  throngs  that  quickly  assembled  at  every  stopping 
place,  while  silent,  were  respectful.  We  tried  to  behave  de- 
cently ourselves,  to  speak  kindly  to  every  man,  to  pay  fair 
prices  for  what  we  bought;  in  short,  to  act  just  as  we  would 
have  acted  in  America.  And  every  man  to  whom  we  smiled, 
smiled  in  return.  Wherever  we  asked  a  civil  question  we  got 
a  civil  answer.  Coolies  would  stop  their  barrows,  farmers 
leave  their  fields  to  direct  us  aright.  In  all  our  travelling  in 
the  interior,  amid  a  population  so  dense  that  we  constantly 
marvelled,  we  never  heard  a  rude  word  or  saw  a  hostile  sign. 
I  naturally  find  it  difficult  to  believe  that  those  pleasant, 
obliging  people  would  have  killed  us  if  they  had  not  been  re- 
strained by  their  magistrates,  and  that  the  officials  who  exerted 
themselves  to  show  us  all  possible  honour  would  have  gladly 
murdered  us  if  they  had  dared. 

And  yet  less  than  a  year  before,  the  Chinese  had  angrily  des- 
troyed the  property  and  venomously  sought  the  lives  of  for- 
eigners who  were  as  peaceably  disposed  as  we  were,  ruthlessly 
hunting  men  and  women  who  had  never  done  them  wrong,  and 
who  had  devoted  their  lives  to  teaching  the  young  and  healing 
the  sick  and  preaching  the  gospel  of  love  and  good  will.  Why 
they  did  this  we  shall  have  occasion  to  observe  in  a  later 
chapter. 


PART  II 

The   Commercial    Force  and  the   Economic 

Revolution 


VIII 

WORLD  CONDITIONS  THAT  ARE  AFFECTING  CHINA' 

SEVERAL  outside  forces  have  pressed  steadily  and  heav- 
ily upon  the  exclusiveness  and  conservatism  of  the 
Chinese,  and  though  they  have  not  yet  succeeded  in 
changing  the  essential  character  of  the  nation,  they  have  set 
in  motion  vast  movements  which  have  already  convulsed  great 
sections  of  the  Empire  and  which  are  destined  to  affect  stu- 
pendous transformations.  The  first  of  these  forces  is  foreign 
commerce. 

To  understand  the  operation  of  this  force,  we  must  consider 
that  its  impact  has  been  enormously  increased  by  the  extension 
of  facilities  for  intercommunication.  The  extent  to  which  these 
have  revolutionized  the  world  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary 
features  of  our  extraordinary  age.  It  is  startlingly  significant 
of  the  change  that  has  taken  place  that  Russia  and  Japan,  na- 
tions 7,000  miles  apart  by  land  and  a  still  greater  distance  by 
water,  are  able  in  the  opening  years  of  the  twentieth  century 
to  wage  war  in  a  region  which  one  army  can  reach  in  four 
weeks  and  the  other  in  four  days,  and  that  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  can  receive  daily  information  as  to  the  progress  of  the 
conflict.  A  half  century  ago,  Russia  could  no  more  have  sent 
a  large  army  to  Manchuria  than  to  the  moon,  while  down  to 
the  opening  of  her  ports  by  Commodore  Perry  in  1854,  the  few 
wooden  vessels  that  made  the  long  journey  to  Japan  found  an 
unprogressive  and  bitterly  anti-foreign  heathen  nation  with  an 
edict  issued  in  1638  still  on  its  statute  books  declaring — "So 
long  as  the  sun  shall  continue  to  warm  the  earth,  let  no  Chris- 
tian be  so  bold  as  to  come  to  Japan ;  and  let  all  know  that  the 
King  of  Spain  himself,  or  the  Christian's  God,  or  the  great  God 

'  Part  of  this  chapter  appeared  as  an  article  in  the  American  Monthly 
Review  of  Reviews,  October,  1904. 

lOI 


102  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

of  all,  if  He  dare  violate  this  command,  shall  pay  for  it  with 
his  head." 

Nor  were  other  far-eastern  peoples  any  more  hospitable. 
China,  save  for  a  few  port  cities,  was  as  impenetrable  as  when 
in  1552  the  dying  Xavier  had  cried — "O  Rock,  Rock,  when 
wilt  thou  open  !  "  Siam  excluded  all  foreigners  until  the  cen- 
tury's first  quarter  had  passed,  and  Laos  saw  no  white  man  till 
1868.  A  handful  of  British  traders  were  so  greedily  deter- 
mined to  keep  all  India  as  a  private  commercial  preserve  that, 
forgetting  their  own  indebtedness  to  Christianity,  they  sneered 
at  the  proposal  to  send  missionaries  to  India  as  "the  maddest, 
most  expensive,  most  unwarranted  project  ever  proposed  by  a 
lunatic  enthusiast,"  while  as  late  as  1857,  a  director  of  the 
East  India  Company  declared  that  "  he  would  rather  see  a  band 
of  devils  in  India  than  a  band  of  missionaries. "  Korea  was 
rightly  called  "the  hermit  nation "  until  1882;  and  as  for 
Africa,  it  was  not  till  1873  that  the  world  learned  of  that  part 
of  it  in  which  the  heroic  Livingstone  died  on  his  knees,  not  till 
1877  that  Stanley  staggered  into  a  West  Coast  settlement  after 
a  desperate  journey  of  999  days  from  Zanzibar  through  Central 
Africa,  not  till  1884  that  the  Berlin  Conference  formed  the  In- 
ternational Association  of  the  Congo  guaranteeing  that  which 
has  not  yet  been  reahzed  " liberty  of  conscience"  and  "the 
free  and  public  exercise  of  every  creed." 

Even  in  America  within  the  memory  of  men  still  living,  the 
lumbering,  white-topped  "prairie  schooner"  was  the  only 
conveyance  for  the  tedious  overland  journey  to  California. 
Hardy  frontiersmen  were  fighting  Indians  in  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  and  the  bold  Whitman  was  "  half  a  year  "  in  bearing  a 
message  from  Oregon  to  Washington. 

The  Hon.  John  W.  Foster  tells  us  in  his  "  Century  of  Amer- 
ican Diplomacy  "  that  "General  Lane,  the  first  territorial  gov- 
ernor of  Oregon,  left  his  home  in  Indiana,  August  27,  1848, 
and  desiring  to  reach  his  destination  as  soon  as  possible,  travel- 
ling overland  to  San  Francisco  and  thence  by  ship,  reached  his 


World  Conditions  that  are  Affecting  China    103 

post  on  the  first  of  March  following — the  journey  occupying 
six  months.  At  the  time  our  treaty  of  peace  and  independence 
was  signed  in  1 783,  two  stage-coaches  were  sufficient  for  all  the 
passengers  and  nearly  all  the  freight  between  New  York  and 
Boston."  It  is  only  seventy  years  since  the  Rev.  John  Lowrie, 
with  his  bride  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Reed,  rode  horseback  from 
Pittsburg  through  flooded  rivers  and  over  the  Allegheny 
Mountains  to  Philadelphia,  whence  it  took  them  four  and 
a-half  months  to  reach  Calcutta. 

Nor  was  this  all,  for  scores  of  the  conveniences  and  even 
necessities  of  our  modern  life  were  unknown  at  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  To  get  some  idea  of  the  vastness 
of  the  revolution  in  the  conditions  of  living,  we  have  but  to 
remind  ourselves  that  "  in  the  year  1800  no  steamer  ploughed 
the  waters  ;  no  locomotive  traversed  an  inch  of  soil ;  no  photo- 
graphic plate  had  ever  been  kissed  by  sunlight ;  no  telephone 
had  ever  talked  from  town  to  town ;  steam  had  never  driven 
mighty  mills  and  electric  currents  had  never  been  harnessed 
into  telegraph  and  trolley  wires. "  '  "  In  all  the  land  there  was  no 
power  loom,  no  power  press,  no  large  manufactory  in  textiles, 
wood  or  iron,  no  canal.  The  possibilities  of  electricity  in 
light,  heat  and  power  were  unknown  and  unsuspected.  The 
cotton  gin  had  just  begun  its  revolutionary  work.  Intercom- 
munication was  difficult,  the  postal  service  slow  and  costly, 
literature  scanty  and  mostly  of  inferior  quality. ' '  ^ 

How  marvellously  the  application  of  steam  as  a  motive 
power  has  united  once  widely  separated  regions.  So  swiftly 
have  the  changes  come  and  so  quickly  have  we  adapted  our- 
selves to  them  that  it  is  difficult  to  realize  the  magnitude  of  the 
transformation  that  has  been  achieved.  We  can  ride  from 
Pittsburg  to  Philadelphia  in  eight  hours  and  to  Calcutta  in 
twenty-two  days.  The  journey  across  our  own  continent  is  no 
longer  marked  by  the  ox-cart  and  the  campfire  and  the  bones 

1  The  Rev.  Dr.  Theodore  Cuyler. 

2  Address  of  the  Bishops  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  1900. 


104  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

of  perished  expeditions.  It  is  simply  a  pleasant  trip  of  less 
than  a  week,  and  in  an  emergency  in  August,  1903,  Henry  P. 
Lowe  travelled  from  New  York  to  Los  Angeles,  3,241  miles,  in 
seventy-three  hours  and  twenty-one  minutes.  Populous  states 
covered  with  a  network  of  railway  and  telegraph  lines  invite 
the  nations  of  the  world  to  join  them  in  celebrating  at  St. 
Louis  the  "  Purchase  "  of  a  region  which  a  hundred  years  ago 
was  as  foreign  to  the  American  people  as  the  Philippines  now 
are.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Calvin  Mateer,  who  in  1863  was  six 
months  in  reaching  Chefoo,  China,  on  a  voyage  from  whose 
hardships  his  wife  never  fully  recovered,  returned  in  a  com- 
fortable journey  of  one  month  in  1902.  To-day,  for  all  prac- 
tical purposes,  China  is  nearer  New  York  than  California  once 
was. 

No  waters  are  too  remote  for  the  modern  steamer.  Its  smoke 
trails  across  every  sea  and  far  up  every  navigable  stream.  Ten 
mail  steamers  regularly  run  on  the  Siberian  Yenisei,  while  the 
Obi,  flowing  from  the  snows  of  the  Little  Altai  Mountains, 
bears  302  steam  vessels  on  various  parts  of  its  2,000-mile 
journey  to  the  Obi  Gulf  on  the  Arctic  Ocean.  Stanley  could 
now  go  from  Glasgow  to  Stanley  Falls  in  forty-three  days. 
Already  there  are  forty-six  steamers  on  the  Upper  Congo. 
From  Cape  Town,  a  railway  2,000  miles  long  runs  via  Bula- 
wayo  to  Beira  on  the  Portuguese  coast,  while  branch  lines  reach 
several  formerly  inaccessible  mining  and  agricultural  regions. 
June  22,  1904,  almost  the  whole  population  of  Cape  Town 
cheered  the  departure  of  the  first  through  train  for  Victoria 
Falls,  where  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science  has  been  invited  to  meet  in  1905.  Uganda  is  reached 
by  rail.  Five  hundred  and  eighty  miles  of  track  unite  Mom- 
basa and  Victoria  Nyanza.  Sleeping  and  dining  cars  safely 
run  the  575  miles  from  Cairo  to  Khartoum  where  only  five 
years  ago  Lord  Kitchener  fought  the  savage  hordes  of  the 
Mahdi.  The  Englishman's  dream  of  a  railroad  from  Cairo  to 
the  Cape  is  more  than  half  realized,  for  2,800  miles  are  already 


World  Conditions  that  are  Affecting  China    105 

completed.     In  1903,  Japan  had  4,237  miles  of  well  managed 
railways  which  in    1902   carried    111,211,208  passengers  and 
14,409,752   tons  of  freight.     India  is   gridironed   by   25,373 
miles  of  steel  rails  which  in  1901  carried  195,000,000  passen- 
gers.   A  railroad  parallels  the  Burmese  Irrawaddy  to  Bhamo  and 
Mandalay,     In  Siam  you  can  ride  by  rail  from  Bangkok  north- 
ward to  Korat  and  westward  to  Petchaburee.     The   Trans- 
Siberian  Railway  now  connects  St.  Petersburg  and  Peking.    In 
Korea,  the  line  from  Chemulpho  to  Seoul  connects  with  lines 
under  construction  both  southward  and  northward,  so  that  ere 
long  one  can  journey  by  rail  from  Fusan  on  the  Korean  Strait 
to  Wiju  on  the  Yalu  River.     As  the  former  is  but  ten  hours  by 
sea  from  Japan  and  as  the  latter  is  to  form  a  junction  with  the 
Trans-Siberian  Railway,  a  land  journey  in   a  sleeping  car  will 
soon  be  practicable  from  London  and  Paris  to  the  capitals  of 
China  and  Korea,  and,   save  for  the  ferry  across  the  Korean 
Strait,  to  any  part  of  the  Mikado's  kingdom.     The  locomotive 
runs  noisily  from  Jaffa  to  venerable  Jerusalem  and  from  Beirut 
over  the  passes  of  Lebanon  to  Damascus,  the  oldest  city  in  the 
world.     A  projected  line  will  run  from  there  to  the  Moham- 
medan Mecca,  so  that  soon  the  Moslem  pilgrims  will  abandon 
the  camel  for  the  passenger  coach.     Most  wonderful  of  all  is 
the  Anatolian  Railway  which  is  to  run  through  the  heart  of 
Asia  Minor,   traversing  the  Karamanian  plateau,  the  Taurus 
Mountains  and  the  Cilician  valleys  to  Haran  where  Abraham 
tarried,   and  Nineveh    where   Jonah    preached,   and   Babylon 
where  Nebuchadnezzar  made  an  image  of  gold,  and  Bagdad 
where  Haroun-al-Raschid  ruled,  to  Koweit  on  the  Persian  Gulf. 
In  a  single  month  forty-five  Philadelphia  engines  have  been 
ordered  for  India.     The  American  locomotive  is  to-day  speed- 
ing across  the  steppes  of  Siberia,  through  the  valleys  of  Japan, 
across  the  uplands  of  Burmah  and   around  the  mountainsides 
of  South   America.      "Yankee  bridge-builders  have  cast  up  a 
highway   in   the   desert  where  the  chariot  of  Cambyses  was 
swallowed  up  by  the  sands.     The  steel  of  Pennsylvania  spans 


io6  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

the  Atbara,  makes  a  road  to  Meroe,"  and  crosses  the  rivers  of 
Peru.  Trains  on  the  two  imperial  highways  of  Africa — the 
one  from  Cairo  to  the  Cape  and  the  other  from  the  upper  Nile 
to  the  Red  Sea — are  to  be  hauled  by  American  engines  over 
American  bridges,  while  the  **  forty  centuries  "  which  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  said  looked  down  from  the  pyramids  see  not  the 
soldiers  of  France,  but  the  manufacturing  agents  of  Europe  and 
America.  Whether  or  not  we  are  to  have  a  political  im- 
perialism, we  already  have  an  industrial  imperialism. 

Walter  J.  Ballard  declares  *  that  the  aggregate  capital  in- 
vested in  railways  at  the  end  of  1902  was  ^36,850,000,000  and 
that  the  total  mileage  was  532,500  distributed  as  follows  :  — 

Miles 

United  States 202,471 

Europe 180,708 

Asia      41,814 

South  America 28,654 

North  America   (Except  U.  S.) 24,032 

Australia 15,649 

Africa 14.187 

Jules  Verne's  story,  "Around  the  World  in  Eighty  Days " 
was  deemed  fantastic  in  1873.  But  in  1903,  James  Willis 
Sayre  of  Seattle,  Washington,  travelled  completely  around  the 
world  in  fifty-four  days  and  nine  hours,  while  the  Russian 
Minister  of  Railroads  issues  the  following  schedule  of  possi- 
bilities when  the  Trans-Siberian  Railroad  has  completed  its 
plans  : — 

From  St.  Petersburg  to  Vladivostok ID    days 

"      Vladivostok  to  San  Francisco 10       " 

"      San  Francisco  to  New  York 4^     " 

"      New  York  to  Bremen 7         " 

•'      Bremen  to  St.  Petersburg I^     " 

Total 2,2,  days 

As  for  the  risks  incident  to  such  a  tour,  it  is  significant  that 
'  New  York  Sun,  July  13,  1903. 


World  Conditions  that  are  Affecting  China    I07 

for  my  own  journey  around  the  world,  a  conservative  insurance 
company,  for  a  consideration  of  only  fifty  dollars,  guaranteed 
for  a  year  to  indemnify  me  in  case  of  incapacitating  accident  to 
the  extent  of  fifty  dollars  a  week  and  in  case  of  death  to  pay 
my  heirs  ^10,000.  And  the  company  made  money  on  the 
arrangement,  for  I  met  with  neither  illness  nor  accident.  With 
a  very  few  unimportant  exceptions,  there  are  now  no  hermit 
nations,  for  the  remotest  lands  are  within  quick  and  easy  reach. 

And  now  electricity  has  ushered  in  an  era  more  wondrous 
still.  Trolley  cars  run  through  the  streets  of  Seoul  and 
Bangkok.  The  Empress  Dowager  of  China  wires  her  decrees 
to  the  Provincial  Governors.  Telegraph  lines  belt  the  globe, 
enabling  even  the  provincial  journal  to  print  the  news  of  the 
entire  world  during  the  preceding  twenty-four  hours.  We 
know  to-day  what  occurred  yesterday  in  Tokyo  and  Beirut, 
Shanghai  and  Batanga.  The  total  length  of  all  telegraph 
lines  in  the  world  is  4,908,921  miles, — the  nerves  of  our 
modern  civilization.  And  it  is  remarkable  not  only  that 
Europe  has  1,764,790  miles,  America  2,516,548  miles  and 
AustraUa  277,479  miles,  but  that  Africa  has  99,409  miles  and 
Asia  310,685  miles,  Japan  alone  having,  in  1903,  84,000  miles 
beside  108,000  miles  of  telephone  wires. 

I  found  the  telegraph  in  Siam  and  Korea,  in  China  and  the 
Philippines,  in  Burma,  India,  Arabia,  Egypt  and  Palestine. 
Camping  one  night  in  far  Northern  Laos  after  a  toilsome  ride 
on  elephants,  I  realized  that  I  was  12,500  miles  from  home,  at 
as  remote  a  point  almost  as  it  would  be  possible  for  man  to 
reach.  All  about  was  the  wilderness,  relieved  only  by  the  few 
houses  of  a  small  village.  But  walking  into  that  tiny  hamlet,  I 
found  at  the  police  station  a  telephone  connecting  with  the 
telegraph  office  at  Chieng-mai,  so  that,  though  I  was  on  the 
other  side  of  the  planet,  I  could  have  sent  a  telegram  to  my 
New  York  office  in  a  few  minutes.  Nor  was  this  an  ex- 
ceptional experience,  for  the  telegraph  is  all  over  Laos,  as  in- 
deed it  is  over  many  other  Asiatic  lands. 


io8  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

From  the  recesses  of  Africa  comes  the  report  that  the  Congo 
telegraph  line,  which  will  ultimately  stretch  across  the  entire 
belt  of  Central  Africa,  already  runs  800  miles  up  the  Congo 
River  from  the  ocean  to  Kwamouth,  the  junction  of  the 
Kassai  and  Congo  Rivers.  A  Belgian  paper  states  that  "a 
telegram  dispatched  from  Kwamouth  on  January  15th  was 
delivered  at  Boma  half  an  hour  later.  For  the  future,  the 
Kassai  is  thus  placed  in  direct  and  rapid  communication  with 
the  seat  of  Government,  and  Europe  is  also  brought  close  to  the 
centre  of  Africa.  Only  a  few  years  ago,  news  took  at  least  two 
months  to  reach  Boma  from  the  Kassai,  and  the  reply  would 
not  be  received  under  another  two  months,  and  this  only  if  the 
parties  were  available  and  the  steamer  ready  to  start." 

More  significant  still  are  the  submarine  cables  which  aggre- 
gate 1,751  in  number  and  over  200,000  miles  in  length  and 
which  annually  transmit  more  than  6,000,000  messages, 
annihilating  the  time  and  distance  which  formerly  separated 
nations.  When  King  William  IV  of  England  died  in  1837, 
the  news  was  thirty-five  days  in  reaching  America.  But  when 
Queen  Victoria  passed  away  January  22,  1901,  at  6:30  p.  M., 
the  afternoon  papers  describing  the  event  were  being  sold  in 
the  streets  of  New  York  at  3:30  p.  m.  of  the  same  day  !  As  I 
rose  to  address  a  union  meeting  of  the  English  speaking  resi- 
dents of  Canton,  China,  on  that  fateful  September  day  of  190 1, 
a  message  was  handed  me  which  read,  "  President  McKinley  is 
dead."  So  that  by  means  of  the  submarine  cable,  that  little 
company  of  Englishmen  and  Americans  in  far-off  China  bowed 
in  grief  and  prayer  simultaneously  with  multitudes  in  the  home 
land. 

Not  only  Europe  and  America,  but  Siberia  and  Australia, 
New  Zealand  and  New  Caledonia,  Korea  and  the  Kameruns, 
Laos  and  Persia  are  within  the  sweep  of  this  modern  system  of 
intercommunication.  The  latest  as  well  as  one  of  the  most 
important  links  in  this  world  system  is  the  Commercial 
Pacific  Cable  between  Manila  and  San  Francisco. 


World  Conditions  that  are  Affecting  China    109 

President  Roosevelt  gave  a  significant  illustration  of  the  per- 
fection of  this  system  when,  on  the  completion  of  the 
Commercial  Pacific  Cable  July  4,  1903,  he  flashed  a  message 
around  the  earth  in  twelve  minutes,  while  a  second  message 
sent  by  Clarence  H.  Mackay,  President  of  the  Pacific  Cable 
Company,  made  the  circuit  of  the  earth  in  nine  minutes. 

What  additional  possibilities  are  involved  in  the  wireless 
system  of  telegraphy  we  can  only  conjecture,  but  it  is  already 
apparent  that  this  system  has  passed  the  experimental  stage 
and  that  it  is  destined  to  achieve  still  more  amazing  results.  A 
startling  illustration  of  its  possibilities  was  given  by  the 
Japanese  fleet  March  22,  1904.  A  cruiser  lay  off  Port  Arthur 
and  by  wireless  messages  enabled  battleships,  riding  safely 
eight  miles  away,  to  bombard  fortifications  which  they  could 
not  see  and  which  could  not  see  them. 

Commerce  has  taken  swift  and  massive  advantages  of  these 
facilities  for  intercommunication.  Its  ships  whiten  every  sea. 
The  products  of  European  and  American  manufacture  are 
flooding  the  earth.  The  United  States  Treasury  Bureau  of 
Statistics  (1903)  estimates  that  the  value  of  the  manufactured 
articles  which  enter  into  the  international  commerce  of  the 
world  is  four  billions  of  dollars  and  that  of  this  vast  total,  the 
United  States  furnishes  400,000,000,  its  foreign  trade  having 
increased  over  100  per  cent,  since  1895.  While  the  bulk  of 
the  foreign  trade  of  the  United  States  is  with  Europe,  American 
business  men  are  gradually  awaking  to  the  greatness  of  their 
opportunity  in  Asia.  A  characteristic  example  of  their  aggress- 
iveness was  given  when  President  James  J.  Hill,  of  the  Great 
Northern  Railroad,  testified  before  a  Government  Commission, 
October  20,  1902  : — 

"  We  arranged  with  a  line  of  steamers  to  connect  with  our  road  so  that 
we  could  get  the  Oriental  outlet.  I  remember  when  the  Japanese  were 
going  to  buy  rails,  I  asked  them  where  they  were  going  to  buy,  and  they 
said  in  England  or  Belgium.  I  asked  them  to  wait  until  I  telegraphed. 
I  wired  and  made  the  rates,  so  that  we  made  the  price  ^1.50  a  ton  lower 


no  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

and  sold  for  America  40,000  tons  of  rails.  Then  I  got  them  to  try  a  little 
of  the  American  cotton,  telling  them  if  it  was  not  satisfactory  I  would  pay 
for  the  cotton,  and  the  result  was  satisfactory." 

In  these  ways,  the  interrelation  of  nations  is  becoming 
closer  and  closer,  their  separation  from  the  world's  life  more 
and  more  dilificult.     Dr.  Josiah  Strong  well  observes  : — 

"  Until  the  nineteenth  century,  there  was  but  little  contact  between 
different  peoples  throughout  the  world.  They  were  separated,  not  only 
by  distances  hard  to  overcome,  but  by  differences  of  speech,  of  faith,  of 
mental  habit  and  mode  of  life,  of  custom  and  costume,  of  government  and 
law,  and  isolation  tended  steadily  to  emphasize  the  divergence  which  al- 
ready existed.  Thus  increasing  differences  of  environment  perpetuated 
and  intensified  the  differences  of  civilization  which  they  had  created.  In 
other  words,  until  the  nineteenth  century,  the  stream  of  tendency  down 
all  the  ages  was  towards  diversity.  Then  came  the  change,  the  results 
of  which  are,  in  their  magnitude  and  importance,  beyond  calculation. 
Steam  annihilated  nine-tenths  of  space,  and  electricity  has  cancelled  the 
remainder.  Isolation  is,  therefore,  becoming  impossible,  for  the  world  is 
now  a  neighbourliood.  This  means  that  differences  of  environment  will, 
from  this  time  on,  become  constantly  less.  The  swift  ships  of  commerce 
are  mighty  shuttles  which  are  weaving  the  nations  together  into  one  great 
web  of  life." 


IX 

THE  ECONOMIC  REVOLUTION  IN  ASIA  ' 

t  1  ^HE  result  of  the  operation  of  this  commercial  force  is 
I  an  economic  revolution  of  vast  proportions.  Wher- 
M  ever  I  went  in  Asia,  I  found  wider  interest  in  this  sub- 
ject than  in  the  aggressions  of  European  nations.  The  reason 
is  obvious.  The  common  people  in  Asia  care  little  for  politics, 
but  the  price  of  food  and  raiment  touches  every  man,  woman 
and  child  at  a  sensitive  point.  Almost  everywhere,  the  old 
days  of  cheap  living  are  passing  away.  Steamers,  railways, 
telegraphs,  newspapers,  labour-saving  machinery,  and  the  in- 
troduction of  western  ideas  are  slowly  but  surely  revolutionizing 
the  Orient.  Shantung  wheat,  which  formerly  had  no  market 
beyond  a  radius  of  a  few  dozen  miles  from  the  wheat-field,  can 
now  be  shipped  by  railroad  and  steamship  to  any  part  of  the 
world,  and  every  Chinese  buyer  has  to  pay  more  for  it  in  conse- 
quence. In  like  manner  new  facilities  for  export  have  doubled, 
trebled  and,  in  some  places,  quadrupled  the  price  of  rice  in 
China,  Siam  and  Japan.  The  Consul-General  of  the  United 
States  at  Shanghai  reports  that  the  prices  of  seventeen  staple 
articles  of  export  have  increased  sixteen  per  cent,  in  twenty 
years  while  in  Japan  the  increase  in  the  same  articles  for  the 
same  period  was  thirty-one  per  cent.'^ 

The  depreciation  in  the  value  of  silver  has  still  further  com- 
plicated the  situation.  The  common  Chinese  tael,  which  for- 
merly bought  from  1,500  to  1,800  cash  (the  current  coin  of 
China),  now  buys  only  950  cash.     The  Shanghai  tael  brings 

'  Part  of  this  chapter  appeared  as  an  article  in  the  Century  Magazine, 
March,  1904. 
^ "  Commercial  China,"  p.  2902. 

Ill 


1 1 2  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

897  cash,  and  the  Mexican  dollar  only  665.  This  of  course, 
means  that  the  common  people,  who  use  only  cash,  have  to  pay 
a  larger  number  of  them  for  the  necessaries  of  life.  The  same 
difficulty  is  being  felt  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  in  many  other 
countries  of  Asia,  while  in  China,  an  already  serious  advance 
in  prices  is  being  heightened  by  the  heavy  import  taxes  which 
have  been  levied  to  meet  the  indemnity  imposed  by  the  West- 
ern Powers  on  account  of  the  Boxer  outbreak. 

The  prices  of  labour  and  materials  have  sharply  advanced  in 
consequence  of  the  enormous  demands  incident  to  the  construc- 
tion of  railways,  with  their  stations,  shops  and  round-houses, 
the  vast  engineering  schemes  of  the  Germans  at  Tsing-tau,  the 
British  at  Wei-hai  Wei  and  the  Russians  at  Port  Arthur,  the 
extensive  scale  on  which  the  Legations  have  rebuilt  in  Peking, 
the  reconstruction  of  virtually  the  entire  business  portions  of 
both  Peking  and  Tien-tsin,  as  well  as  the  coincident  rebuilding 
of  the  mission  stations  of  all  denominations,  Protestant  and 
Catholic.  It  will  be  readily  understood  what  all  this  activity 
means  in  a  land  where  there  are  as  yet  but  limited  supplies  of 
the  kind  of  skilled  labourers  required  for  foreign  buildings,  and 
where  the  requisite  materials  must  be  imported  from  Europe 
and  America  by  firms  who  "  are  not  in  China  for  their  health." 

It  is  futile  to  hope  that  the  competition  will  be  materially  less 
next  year,  or  the  year  after,  or  the  year  after  that.  Commerce 
and  politics  are  projecting  works  in  China  which  will  not  be 
completed  for  many  years.  Railway  officials  told  me  of  projected 
lines  which  will  require  decades  for  construction.  China  has 
entered  upon  an  era  of  commercial  development.  The  West- 
ern world  has  come  to  stay,  and  while  there  may  be  temporary 
reactions,  as  there  have  been  at  home,  prices  are  not  likely  to 
return  to  their  former  level.  There  are  vast  interior  regions 
which  will  not  be  affected  for  an  indefinite  period,  but  for  the 
coast  provinces,  primitive  conditions  are  passing  forever. 

The  knowledge  of  modern  inventions  and  of  other  foods 
and  articles  has  created  new  wants.    The  Chinese  peasant  is  no 


THE  BUND,  SHANGHAI 


AMERICAN  CIGARETTE  POSTERS  ON  A 
CHINESE  BRIDGE 


The  Economic  Revolution  in  Asia        1 13 

longer  content  to  burn  bean  oil ;  he  wants  kerosene.  In 
scores  of  humble  Loas  homes  and  markets  I  saw  American 
lamps  costing  twenty  rupees  apiece,  and  a  magistrate  proudly 
showed  me  a  collection  of  nineteen  of  these  shining  articles. 
Forty  thousand  dollars  worth  of  these  lamps  were  sold  in  Siam 
last  year.  The  narrow  streets  of  Canton  are  brilliant  with  Ger- 
man chandeliers  and  myriads  of  private  houses  throughout  the 
Empire  are  lighted  by  foreign  lamps.  The  desire  of  the 
Asiatic  to  possess  foreign  lamps  is  only  equalled  by  his  passion 
for  foreign  clocks.  I  counted  twenty-seven  in  the  private 
apartments  of  the  Emperor  of  China  and  my  wife  counted 
nineteen  in  a  single  room  of  the  Empress  Dowager's  palace, 
while  cheaper  ones  tick  to  the  delighted  wonder  of  myriads  of 
humbler  people.  The  ambitious  Syrian  scorns  the  mud  roof 
of  his  ancestors  and  will  only  be  satisfied  with  bright  red  tiles 
imported  from  France.  In  almost  every  Asiatic  city  I  visited, 
I  found  shops  crowded  with  articles  of  foreign  manufacture. 
"Made  in  Germany"  is  as  familiar  a  phrase  in  Siam  as  in 
America.  Many  children  in  China  are  arrayed  only  in  the  at- 
mosphere, but  when  I  was  in  Taian-fu,  in  the  far  interior  of 
Shantung,  hundreds  of  parents  were  in  consternation  because 
the  magistrate  had  just  placarded  the  walls  with  an  edict  an- 
nouncing that  hereafter  boys  and  girls  must  wear  clothes  and 
that  they  would  be  arrested  if  found  on  the  streets  naked.  At 
a  banquet  given  to  the  foreign  ministers  by  the  Emperor  and 
the  Empress  Dowager  in  the  famous  Summer  Palace  twelve 
miles  from  Peking,  the  distinguished  guests  cut  York  ham  with 
Sheffield  knives  and  drank  French  wines  out  of  German  glasses. 
Everywhere  articles  of  foreign  manufacture  are  in  demand, 
and  shrewd  Chinese  merchants  are  stocking  their  shops  with 
increasing  quantities  of  European  and  American  goods.  The 
new  Chinese  Presbyterian  Church  at  Wei-hsien  typifies  the  ele- 
ments that  are  entering  Asia  for  it  contains  Chinese  brick, 
Oregon  fir  beams,  German  steel  binding-plates  and  rods,  Bel- 
gian glass,  Manchurian  pine  pews,  and  British  cement. 


114  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

India  is  eagerly  buying  American  rifles,  tools,  boots  and 
shoes,  while  vast  regions  which  depend  upon  irrigation  are  be- 
coming interested  in  American  well-boring  outfits.  Persia  is 
demanding  increasing  quantities  of  American  padlocks,  sewing- 
machines  and  agricultural  implements.  German,  English  and 
American  machinery  is  equipping  great  cotton  factories  in 
Japan.  I  saw  Russian  and  American  oil  tins  in  the  remotest 
villages  of  Korea.  Strolling  along  the  river  bank  one  evening 
in  Paknampo,  Siam,  I  heard  a  familiar  whirring  sound  and 
entering  found  a  bare-legged  Siamese  busily  at  work  on  a  sew- 
ing-machine of  American  make.  Nearly  five  hundred  of  them 
are  sold  in  Siam  every  year,  and  I  found  them  in  most  of  the 
cities  that  I  visited  in  other  Asiatic  countries.  When  I  left 
Lampoon  on  an  elephant,  six  hundred  miles  north  of  Bangkok, 
a  Laos  gentleman  rode  beside  me  for  several  miles  on  an  Amer- 
ican bicycle.  There  are  thousands  of  them  in  Siam.  His 
Majesty  himself  frequently  rides  one  and  His  Royal  Highness, 
Prince  Damrong,  is  president  of  a  bicycle  club  of  four  hundred 
members.  The  king's  palace  is  lighted  by  electricity  and  the 
Government  buildings  are  equipped  with  telephones,  and  as  the 
nobles  and  merchants  see  the  brilliancy  of  the  former  and  the 
convenience  of  the  latter,  they  want  them,  too.  In  many 
parts  of  Asia  people,  who  but  a  decade  or  two  ago  were  satis- 
fied with  the  crudest  appliances  of  primitive  life,  are  now 
learning  to  use  steam  and  electrical  machinery,  to  like  Oregon 
flour,  Chicago  beef,  Pittsburg  pickles  and  London  jam,  and  to 
see  the  utility  of  foreign  wire,  nails,  cutlery,  drugs,  paints  and 
chemicals. 

Many  other  illustrations  of  a  changed  condition  might  be 
cited.  Knowledge  increases  wants  and  the  Oriental  is  acquir- 
ing knowledge.  He  demands  a  hundred  things  to-day  that  his 
grandfather  never  heard  of,  and  when  he  goes  to  the  shops  to 
buy  his  daily  food,  he  finds  that  the  new  market  for  it  which 
the  foreigner  has  opened  has  increased  the  price. 

Americans   are  the  very   last  people  who  can  consistently 


The  Economic  Revolution  in  Asia        1 1 5 

criticise  this  tendency  in  Asia.  It  is  the  foreigner  who  has 
created  it,  and  the  American  is  the  most  prodigal  of  all  for- 
eigners. I  never  realized  until  I  visited  other  lands  how  ex- 
travagant is  the  scale  of  American  life,  not  only  among  the 
rich,  but  the  so-called  poor.  My  morning  walk  to  my  New 
York  office  takes  me  along  Christopher  Street,  and  I  have  often 
seen  in  the  garbage  cans  of  tenement  houses  pieces  of  bread 
and  meat  and  half-eaten  vegetables  and  fruit  that  would  give 
the  average  Asiatic  the  feast  of  a  lifetime.  In  Europe,  Amer- 
icans are  notorious  as  spendthrifts.  In  the  Philippine  Islands, 
they  have  thrown  about  their  money  in  a  way  which  has  inau- 
gurated an  era  of  reckless  lavishness  comparable  only  to  the 
California  days  of  "forty-nine."  In  the  port  cities  of  China, 
the  porters  asked  me  extortionate  prices  because  I  was  an 
American.  Two  or  three  coolies  would  seize  a  suit  case  or 
change  it  from  man  to  man  every  few  minutes,  on  the  pretense 
that  it  was  heavy.  In  Tient-tsin,  you  hire  a  jinrikisha  and 
presently  you  find  a  second  man  pushing  behind,  though  the 
road  is  smooth  as  a  floor.  In  a  few  minutes  a  third  appears  to 
push  on  the  other  side,  and  once  a  fourth  took  hold  between 
the  second  and  third.  All  of  course  demand  pay,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  shake  them  off.  They  do  not  understand  your  pro- 
tests, or  they  pretend  not  to,  and  you  have  to  be  emphatic  to 
get  rid  of  them.  At  Tong-ku,  my  sampan  men  calmly  insisted 
on  two  dollars  for  a  service  that  was  worth  but  forty  cents. 
Everywhere,  I  found  that  it  was  wiser  to  make  all  purchases 
and  bargains  through  trusty  native  Christians,  or  to  ascertain 
in  advance  what  a  given  service  was  really  worth,  pay  it  and 
walk  off,  deaf  to  all  protestations  and  complaints,  even  though 
as  in  Seoul,  Korea,  the  men  plaintively  sat  around  for  hours. 
In  Cairo,  a  certain  hotel  charged  me  on  the  supposition  that 
because  I  was  an  American,  I  was  a  millionaire  or  a  fool — per- 
haps both.  True,  we  have  hack-drivers  and  hotel-keepers  in 
America  who  are  equally  rapacious,  and  a  New  Yorker  in  par- 
ticular need  not  go  away  from  home  to  be  overcharged.     But 


li6  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

it  is  just  because  we  have  become  so  accustomed  to  this  care- 
less profusion  at  home  that  we  exhibit  it  abroad. 

But  it  is  useless  to  protest  against  the  increased  cost  of  living 
in  Asia.  It  is  as  much  beyond  individual  control  as  the  tides. 
The  causes  which  are  producing  it  are  not  even  national  but 
cosmopolitan. 

Nor  should  we  ignore  the  fact  that  this  movement  is,  in 
some  respects  at  least,  beneficial.  It  means  a  higher  and 
broader  scale  of  life  and  such  a  life  always  costs  more  than  a 
low  and  narrow  one.  This  economic  revolution  in  Asia  is  a 
concomitant  of  a  Christian  civilization  which  brings  not  only 
higher  prices  but  wider  intellectual  and  spiritual  horizons,  a 
general  enlarging  and  uplifting  of  the  whole  range  of  life. 
There  are  indeed  some  vicious  influences  accompanying  this 
movement,  as  brighter  lights  usually  have  deeper  shadows. 

But  surely  it  is  for  good  and  not  for  evil  that  the  farmers  of 
Hunan  can  now  ship  their  peanuts  to  England  and  with  the 
proceeds  vary  the  eternal  monotony  of  a  rice-diet ;  that  the 
girls  of  Siam  are  being  taught  by  missionary  example  that 
modesty  requires  the  purchase  of  a  garment  for  street  wear 
which  will  cover  at  least  the  breasts ;  that  the  Korean  should 
learn  that  it  is  better  to  have  a  larger  house  so  that  the  girls  of 
the  family  need  not  sleep  in  the  same  room  as  the  boys ;  and 
that  all  China  should  discover  the  advantages  of  roads  over 
rutty,  corkscrew  paths,  of  sanitation  over  heaps  of  putrid  gar- 
bage and  of  wooden  floors  over  filth-encrusted  ground.  Chris- 
tianity inevitably  involves  some  of  these  things,  and  to  some 
extent  the  awakening  of  Asia  to  the  need  of  them  is  a  part  of 
the  beneficent  influence  of  a  gospel  which  always  and  every- 
where renders  men  dissatisfied  with  a  narrow,  squalid  ex- 
istence. To  make  a  man  decent  morally  is  to  beget  in  him  a 
desire  to  be  decent  physically. 

The  native  Christians,  especially  the  pastors  and  teachers, 
are  the  very  ones  who  first  feel  this  movement  towards  a 
higher  physical  life.     Nor  should  we  repress  it  in  them,  for  it 


The  Economic  Revolution  in  Asia        117 

means  an  environment  more  favourable  to  morals  and  to  the 
stability  of  Christian  character  as  well  as  a  healthful  example 
to  the  community  in  which  they  live.  To  say,  therefore,  that 
the  average  annual  income  of  a  Hindu  is  rupees  twenty-seven 
(nine  dollars)  is  not  to  adduce  a  reason  for  holding  the  pastors 
and  evangelists  of  India  down  to  that  scale.  They  should,  in- 
deed, live  near  enough  to  the  plane  of  their  countrymen  to  keep 
in  sympathetic  touch  with  them.  But  they  should  not  be  ex- 
pected or  allowed  to  huddle  in  the  dark,  unventilated  hovels  of 
the  masses  of  the  people,  or,  by  confining  themselves  to  one 
scanty  meal  a  day,  have  that  gaunt,  half-famished  look  which 
makes  my  heart  ache  every  time  I  think  of  the  walking  skele- 
tons I  saw  in  India.  I  am  not  ashamed  but  proud  of  the  fact 
that  it  costs  the  average  Christian  more  to  live  in  Asia  than  it 
costs  the  average  heathen,  that  the  houses  of  the  Laos  Chris- 
tians are  better  than  the  single-roomed  sheds  about  them,  that 
the  graduates  of  our  Siam  mission  schools  for  girls  wear  shirt 
waists  instead  of  sunshine,  that  the  members  of  any  one  of  our 
Korean  churches  spend  more  money  on  soap  than  a  whole  vil- 
lage of  their  heathen  neighbours  whose  bodies  are  caked  with 
the  accumulations  of  years  of  neglect,  that  the  sessions  of  our 
Syrian  churches  are  Christian  gentlemen  in  appearance  as  well 
as  in  fact,  and  that  the  houses  of  our  Chinese  Christians  do  not 
mix  pigs,  chickens  and  babies  in  one  lousy,  malodorous 
company. 

But  these  altered  conditions  have  not  yet  brought  the  ability 
to  meet  them.  The  cost  of  living  has  increased  faster  than  the 
resources  of  the  people.  Only  France  and  Russia  are  prima- 
rily political  in  their  foreign  policy.  England,  Germany  and 
the  United  States  are  avowedly  commercial.  They  talk  inces- 
santly about  "the  open  door."  Their  supreme  object  in  Asia 
is  to  ''extend  their  markets."  They  are  producing  more  than 
they  can  use  themselves,  and  they  seek  an  opportunity  to  dis- 
pose of  their  surplus  products.  They  are  less  concerned  to 
bring     the     products     of   Asia    into    their    own    territories. 


1 1 8  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Indeed,  Germany  and  particularly  the  United  States  have 
built  a  tariff  wall  about  themselves,  expressly  to  protect 
home  industries  from  outside  competition,  and  not  a  few 
American  manufacturers  have  recently  been  on  the  verge  of 
panic  on  account  of  Japanese  competition.  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica are  trying  to  force  their  own  manufactures  on  to  Asia  and 
to  take  in  return  only  what  they  please. 

In  time,  this  will  probably  right  itself,  in  part  at  least. 
While  the  farmers  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  find  living  much 
more  expensive  than  it  was  two  generations  ago,  they  also  find 
that  they  get  more  for  their  wheat  and  that  they  eat  better  food 
and  wear  better  clotlies  and  build  better  houses  than  their 
grandfathers.  The  era  of  railroads  ended  the  days  of  cheap 
living,  but  it  ended  as  well  days  when  the  farmer  had  to  con- 
fine himself  to  a  diet  of  corn-bread  and  salt  pork,  when  his 
home  was  destitute  of  comforts  and  his  children  had  little 
schooling  and  no  books.  So  the  American  working  man  of  to- 
day has  to  pay  more  for  the  necessaries  of  life  than  the  work- 
ing man  of  Europe,  but  he  is  nevertheless  the  best  paid,  the 
best  fed,  the  best  clothed  and  the  best  housed  working  man  in 
the  world,  a  far  better  and  more  intelligent  citizen  because  of 
these  very  conditions. 

The  same  changes  will  doubtless  take  place  in  Asia.  That 
great  continent  is  capable  of  producing  enormous  quantities  of 
food,  minerals  and  both  raw  and  manufactured  articles  which 
the  rest  of  the  world  will  sooner  or  later  want.  Already  this 
foreign  demand  is  bringing  comparative  wealth  to  the  rug 
dealers  of  Syria,  the  silk  embroiderers  of  China  and  the  cloi- 
sonne and  porcelain  makers  of  Japan.  But  only  an  infinitesi- 
mal part  of  the  total  population  has  thus  far  profited  largely  by 
this  wider  market.  Where  one  man  amasses  wealth  in  this 
way,  100,000  men  find  that  aggressive  foreign  traders  exploit 
their  wares  by  flooding  the  shops  with  tempting  articles  which 
they  can  ill-afford  to  buy.  The  difficulty  is  rapidly  becoming 
acute.     My  inquiries  in  Japan  led  me  to  the  conclusion  that 


The  Economic  Revolution  in  Asia        119 

while  the  cost  of  the  staple  articles  of  living  has  increased 
nearly  100  per  cent,  in  the  last  twenty  years,  the  financial  abil- 
ity of  the  average  Japanese  has  not  increased  thirty  per  cent. 
In  China,  Siam,  India,  the  Philippine  Islands,  and  Syria  I 
found  substantially  similar  anxieties  though  the  proportions 
naturally  varied.  "True,  there  has  been  commerce  since  the 
early  ages,  but  caravans  could  afford  to  carry  only  precious 
goods,  like  fine  fabrics,  spices  and  gems.  These  luxuries  did 
not  reach  the  multitude,  and  could  not  materially  change  en- 
vironment. But  modern  commerce  scatters  over  all  the  world 
the  products  of  every  climate,  in  ever  increasing  quantities." 

So  the  economic  revolution  in  Asia  is  characterized,  as  such 
revolutions  usually  are  in  Europe  and  America,  by  wide-spread 
unrest  and,  in  some  places,  by  violence.  The  oldest  of  conti- 
nents is  the  latest  to  undergo  the  throes  of  the  stupendous 
transformation  from  which  the  newest  is  slowly  beginning  to 
emerge.  The  transition  period  in  Asia  will  be  longer  and  per- 
haps more  trying,  as  the  numbers  involved  are  vaster  and  more 
conservative  ;  but  the  ultimate  result  cannot  fail  to  be  beneficial 
both  to  Asia  and  to  the  whole  world. 

It  is  therefore  too  late  to  discuss  the  question  whether  the 
character  and  religions  of  these  nations  should  be  disturbed. 
They  have  already  been  disturbed  by  the  inrush  of  new  ideas 
and  by  the  ways  as  well  as  by  the  products  of  the  white  man. 
Like  their  ancient  temples,  the  religions  of  Asia  are  cracking 
from  pinnacle  to  foundation.  The  natives  themselves  realize 
that  the  old  days  are  passing  forever.  India  is  in  a  ferment. 
Japan  has  leaped  to  world  prominence.  The  power  of  the 
Mahdi  has  been  broken  and  the  Soudan  has  been  opened  to 
civilization.  The  King  of  Siam  has  made  Sunday  a  legal  holi- 
day and  is  frightening  his  conservative  subjects  by  his  revolu- 
tionary changes,  while  Korea  is  changing  with  kaleidoscopic 
rapidity. 

Whereas  the  opening  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  saw  the 
struggle  for  civilization,  of  the  seventeenth  century  for  religious 


120  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

liberty,  of  the  eighteenth  century  for  constitutional  govern- 
ment, of  the  nineteenth  century  for  political  freedom,  the 
opening  years  of  the  twentieth  century  witness  what  Lowell 
would  have  called  :  — 

"  One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness  'twixt 
Old  systems  and  the  word." 


X 

FOREIGN  TRADE  AND  FOREIGN  VICES 


1 


"^HE  influences  that  are  thus  surging  into  the  Middle 
Kingdom  are  tremendous.  The  beginnings  of  China's 
foreign  trade  date  back  to  the  third  century,  though 
it  was  not  until  comparatively  recent  years  that  it  grew  to  large 
proportions.  To-day  the  leading  seaports  of  China  have  many 
great  business  houses  handling  vast  quantities  of  European  and 
American  goods.  The  most  persistent  effort  is  made  to  extend 
commerce  with  the  Chinese.  That  the  effort  is  successful  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  the  foreign  trade  of  China  increased 
from  217,183,960  taels  in  1888  to  460,533,288  taels  in  1900, 
and  even  this  gain  of  more  than  a  hundred  per  cent,  does  not 
express  the  whole  truth,  for  it  does  not  include  the  coastwise 
shipping  or  the  considerable  quantities  of  goods  brought  in  by 
Chinese  vessels  which,  though  plying  between  native  and  for- 
eign ports,  are  not  reported  through  the  customs'  service.  Ac- 
cording to  official  reports,^  the  foreign  trade  of  China  has  been 
growing  rapidly  during  recent  years,  the  only  falling  off  having 
been  in  the  Boxer  outbreak  year  1900.  In  1891,  the  imports 
into  China  were,  in  round  numbers,  134,000,000  taels  and 
the  exports  were  101,000,000,  a  total  of  235,000,000,  and  an 
excess  of  imports  of  33  per  cent.  In  1903  the  imports  had 
advanced  to  327,000,000  taels  and  the  exports  to  214,000,000 
taels,  a  total  of  541,000,000  taels,  an  increase  of  130  per  cent, 
and  an  excess  of  imports  of  53  per  cent.  In  1899  the  total 
foreign  trade  of  China  had  reached  460,000,000  taels.  The 
next  year  it  dropped  to  370,000,000  taels,  but  in  1901  it  sprang 

' "  Returns  of  Trade  for  1903,"  published  by  the  Maritime  Customs 
Department  of  China. 

121 


122  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

to  438,000,000  taels,  and  has  advanced  another  100,000,000 
taels  within  the  past  two  years. ^ 

The  share  of  the  United  States  is  larger  than  one  might  infer 
from  the  reports,  as  no  inconsiderable  part  of  our  trade  goes  to 
China  by  way  of  England  and  Hongkong  and  is  often  credited  to 
the  British  total  instead  of  to  ours.  American  trade  has,  more- 
over, rapidly  increased  since  1900.  We  now  sell  more  cotton 
goods  to  China  than  to  all  other  countries  combined,  the  ex- 
ports having  increased  from  ^5,195,845  in  1898  to  $16,048,485 
in  1902.  In  the  same  year,  45,287,807  gallons  of  kerosene 
oil  valued  at  $2,500,000  were  shipped  from  the  United  States 
to  China.  The.  development  of  the  flour  trade  has  been  extra- 
ordinary, the  sales  having  risen  from  $89,305  in  1898  to 
$4,676,491  in  the  first  ten  months  of  1903. 

In  Hongkong,  I  found  American  flour  controlling  the 
market.  I  learned  on  inquiry  that  years  before,  a  firm  in 
Portland,  Oregon,  had  sent  an  agent  to  introduce  its  flour. 
The  rice-eating  Chinese  did  not  want  it,  but  the  agent  stayed, 
gave  away  samples,  explained  its  use  and  pushed  his  goods  so 
energetically  and  persistently  that  after  years  of  labour  and  the 
expenditure  of  tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  a  market  was  cre- 
ated. Now  that  firm  sells  in  such  enormous  quantities  that  its 
numerous  mills  must  run  day  and  night  to  supply  the  demand, 
and  the  annual  profits  run  into  six  figures.  That  city  of  Port- 
land alone  exported  to  Asia,  chiefly  China,  in  1903  : — 

849,360  barrels  flour ^2,974,620 

522,887   bushels   wheat 413,901 

46,847,975   feet  lumber 647,355 

Miscellaneous  merchandise 352,879 

Total ^4,414,651 

While  cotton  goods,  kerosene  oil  and  flour  are  our  chief  ex- 
ports to  China,  there  is  a  growing  demand   for  many  other 

1  "  Returns  of  Trade  for  1903,"  published  by  the  Maritime  Customs  De- 
partment of  China. 


Foreign  Trade  and  Foreign  Vices         123 

American  products.  The  utility  of  the  American  locomotive 
has  become  so  apparent  that  in  1899,  engines  costing  ^732,212 
were  sent  to  China  and  additional  orders  are  received  every 
few  months.  With  the  enormous  forests  bordering  the  Pacific 
Ocean  in  the  states  of  Oregon  and  Washington,  and  with  the 
development  of  cheap  water  transportation,  there  is  a  rapidly 
widening  market  in  China  for  American  lumber.  Eastern  Asia 
is  too  densely  peopled  to  have  large  forests,  and  those  she  has 
are  not  within  easy  reach.  Native  lumber,  therefore,  is  scarce 
and  often  small  and  crooked.  That  in  common  use  comes 
from  Manchuria  and  Korea.  I  was  impressed  in  Tsing-tau  to 
find  that  the  Germans  are  using  Oregon  lumber  and  to  be  told 
that  it  is  considered  the  best,  and  in  the  long  run,  the  cheapest. 
Oregon  pine  costs  more  than  the  Korean  and  Manchurian,  but 
it  is  superior  in  size  and  quality.  The  transportation  charges 
to  the  interior,  however,  are  a  heavy  addition.  Manchurian 
pine  can  be  delivered  at  such  an  interior  city  as  Wei-hsien,  via 
the  junk  port  of  Yang-chia-ko  and  thence  by  land,  for  twenty 
dollars,  gold,  per  thousand  square  feet,  which  is  considerably 
less  than  the  Tsing-tau  retail  price  for  Asiatic  lumber.  Oregon 
lumber  costs  in  Shanghai,  thirty-two  dollars  gold,  per  thousand, 
but  an  importer  estimated  that  it  could  be  delivered  at  Tsing- 
tau  for  twenty-five  dollars  gold  per  thousand  in  large  quantities. 

The  exports  of  the  United  States  to  China,  according  to  the 
reports  of  Consul-General  Goodnow  of  Shanghai,  increased 
from  $11,081,146  in  1900  to  $18,175,484  in  1901  and  $22,- 
698,282  in  1902,  while  for  1903  they  reached  the  total  of  over 
$27,000,000,  a  gain  of  nearly  250  per  cent,  since  1900  and  of 
600  per  cent,  as  compared  with  1893. 

Meantime,  the  United  States  imported  from  China  goods  to 
the  value  of  $27,189,283  in  1902,  which  is  an  increase  of  $10, - 
572,995  over  the  imports  for  1901.  Silk  and  tea  are  the  prin- 
cipal items  in  this  trade,  the  figures  for  the  former  being  $10,- 
643'95o  and  for  the  latter  $7,447,822,  though  of  goatskins  we 
took  $2,127,267,  wool  $2,039,895,  and  matting  $1,303,881. 


124  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

The  United  States  is  now  the  third  nation  in  trade  relations 
with  China,  This  is  the  more  remarkable  when  we  consider 
the  statement  of  the  late  Mr.  Everett  Frazar  of  the  American 
Asiatic  Association  that  in  January,  1901,  there  were  only  four 
American  business  firms  in  all  China.  When  our  business  men 
establish  their  own  houses  in  China  instead  of  dealing  as  now 
through  European  and  Chinese  firms,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to 
expect  that  the  United  States  will  outstrip  its  larger  rivals  Great 
Britain  and  France,  though,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  it  is 
one  thing  to  ship  foreign  goods  to  China  and  quite  another 
thing  to  control  them  after  their  arrival,  for  the  Chinese  are 
disposed  to  manage  that  trade  themselves  and  they  know  how 
to  do  it. 

Unfortunately  the  stream  of  foreign  trade  with  China  has 
been  contaminated  by  many  of  the  vices  which  disgrace  our 
civilization.  The  pioneer  traders  were,  as  a  rule,  pirates  and 
adventurers,  who  cheated  and  abused  the  Chinese  most  fla- 
grantly. Gorst  says  that  "rapine,  murder  and  a  constant  ap- 
peal to  force  chiefly  characterized  the  commencement  of  Eu- 
rope's commercial  intercourse  with  China,"  There  are  many 
men  of  high  character  engaged  in  business  in  the  great  cities 
of  China.  I  would  not  speak  any  disparaging  word  of  those 
who  are  worthy  of  all  respect.  But  it  is  all  too  evident  that 
"  many  Americans  and  Europeans  doing  business  in  Asia  are 
living  the  life  of  the  prodigal  son  who  has  not  yet  come  to  him- 
self." Profane,  intemperate,  immoral,  not  living  among  the 
Chinese,  but  segregating  themselves  in  foreign  communities  in 
the  treaty  ports,  not  speaking  the  Chinese  language,  frequently 
beating  and  cursing  those  who  are  in  their  employ,  regarding 
the  Chinese  with  hatred  and  contempt, — it  is  no  wonder  that 
they  are  hated  in  return  and  that  their  conduct  has  done  much 
to  justify  the  Chinese  distrust  of  the  foreigner.  The  foreign 
settlements  in  the  port  cities  of  China  are  notorious  for  their 
profligacy.  Intemperance  and  immorality,  gambling  and  Sab- 
bath desecration  run  riot.     When  after  his  return  from  a  long 


Foreign  Trade  and  Foreign  Vices         125 

journey  in  Asia,  the  Rev.  Dr.  George  Pentecost  was  asked — 
"What  are  the  darkest  spots  in  the  missionary  outlook?"  he 
replied : — 

"  In  lands  of  spiritual  darkness,  it  is  difficult  to  speak  of  '  darkest 
spots.'  I  should  say,  however,  that  if  there  is  a  darkness  more  dark 
than  other  darkness,  it  is  that  which  is  cast  into  heathen  darkness 
by  the  ungodliness  of  the  American  and  European  communities  that 
have  invaded  the  East  for  the  sake  of  trade  and  empire.  The  corruption 
of  Western  godliness  is  the  worst  evil  in  the  East.  Of  course  there  are 
noble  exceptions  among  western  commercial  men  and  their  families,  but 
as  a  rule  the  European  and  American  resident  in  the  East  is  a  constant 
contradiction  to  all  and  everything  which  the  missionary  stands  for." 

Most  of  the  criticisms  of  missionaries  which  find  their  way 
into  the  daily  papers  emanate  from  such  men.  The  mission- 
aries do  not  gamble  or  drink  whiskey,  nor  will  their  wives  and 
daughters  attend  or  reciprocate  entertainments  at  which  wine, 
cards  and  dancing  are  the  chief  features.  So,  of  course,  the 
missionaries  are  "canting  hypocrites,"  and  are  believed  to  be 
doing  no  good,  because  the  foreigner  who  has  never  visited  a 
Chinese  Christian  Church,  school  or  hospital  in  his  life,  does 
not  see  the  evidences  of  missionary  work  in  his  immediate 
neighbourhood.  The  editor  of  the  Japan  Daily  Mail  justly 
says : —  * 

"  We  do  not  suggest  that  these  newspapers  which  denounce  the  mis- 
sionaries so  vehemently  desire  to  be  unjust  or  have  any  suspicion  that  they 
are  unjust.  But  we  do  assert  that  they  have  manifestly  taken  on  the  colour 
of  that  section  of  every  far  eastern  community  whose  units,  for  some 
strange  reason,  entertain  an  inveterate  prejudice  against  the  missionary 
and  his  works.  Were  it  possible  for  these  persons  to  give  an  intelligent 
explanation  of  the  dislike  with  which  the  missionary  inspires  them,  their 
opinions  would  command  more  respect.  But  they  have  never  succeeded 
in  making  any  logical  presentment  of  their  case,  and  no  choice  offers  ex- 
cept to  regard  them  as  the  victims  of  an  antipathy  which  has  no  basis  in 
reason  or  reflection.     That  a  man  should  be  anti-Christian  and  should  de- 

>  April  7,  1901. 


126  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

vote  his  pen  to  propagating  his  views  is  strictly  within  his  right,  and  we 
must  not  be  understood  as  suggesting  that  the  smallest  reproach  attaches 
to  such  a  person.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  within  the  right  of  the 
missionary  to  protest  against  being  arraigned  before  judges  habitually  hos- 
tile to  him,  and  it  is  within  the  right  of  the  public  to  scrutinize  the  pro- 
nouncements of  such  judges  with  much  suspicion." 

Charles  Darwin  did  not  hesitate  to  put  the  matter  more 
bluntly  still.  He  will  surely  not  be  deemed  a  prejudiced  wit- 
ness, but  he  plainly  said  of  the  traders  and  travellers  who  at- 
tack missionaries  : — 

"  It  is  useless  to  argue  against  such  reasoners.  I  believe  that,  disap- 
pointed in  not  finding  the  field  of  licentiousness  quite  so  open  as  for- 
merly, they  will  not  give  credit  to  a  morality  which  they  do  not  wish  to 
practice,  or  to  a  religion  which  tliey  undervalue  or  despise." 

These  facts  are  a  suggestive  commentary  on  the  popular  notion 
that  civilization  should  precede  Christianity.  The  Rev.  Dr. 
James  Stewart,  the  veteran  missionary  of  South  Africa,  says  that 
it  is  an  "unpleasant  and  startling  statement,  unfortunately 
true,  that  contact  with  European  nations  seems  always  to  have 
resulted  in  further  deterioration  of  the  African  races.  .  . 
Trade  and  commerce  have  been  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa 
for  more  than  three  centuries.  What  have  they  made  of  that 
region  ?  Some  of  its  tribes  are  more  hopeless,  more  sunken 
morally  and  socially,  and  rapidly  becoming  more  commercially 
valueless,  than  any  tribes  that  may  be  found  throughout  the 
whole  of  the  continent.  Mere  commercial  influence  by  its  ex- 
ample or  its  teaching  during  all  that  time  has  had  little  effect 
on  the  cruelty  and  reckless  shedding  of  blood  and  the  human 
sacrifices  of  the  besotted  paganism  which  still  exists  near  that 
coast."  Of  his  experience  in  New  Guinea,  James  Chalmers 
declared  : — "I  have  had  twenty-one  years'  experience  among 
natives.  I  have  lived  with  the  Christian  native,  and  I  have 
lived,  and  dined,  and  slept  with  cannibals.     But  I  have  never 


Foreign  Trade  and  Foreign  Vices         127 

yet  met  with  a  single  man  or  woman,  or  with  a  single  people, 
that  civilization  without  Christianity  has  civilized." 

Substantially  similar  statements  might  be  made  regarding 
other  lands. 

"  The  more  we  open  the  world  to  what  we  call  civilization,  and  the  more 
education  we  give  it  of  the  kind  we  call  scientific,  the  greater  are  the 
dangers  to  modern  society,  unless  in  some  way  we  contrive  to  make  all 
the  world  better.  Brigands  armed  with  repeating  rifles  and  supplied  with 
smokeless  gunpowder  are  brigands  still,  but  ten  times  more  dangerous  than 
before.  The  vaste  hordes  of  human  beings  in  Asia  and  Africa,  so  long  as 
they  are  left  in  seclusion,  are  dangerous  to  their  immediate  neighbours ; 
but,  when  they  have  railroads,  steamboats,  tariffs,  and  machine  guns,  while 
they  retain  their  savage  ideals  and  barbarous  customs,  they  become  dan- 
gerous to  all  the  rest  of  the  world."  ^ 

A  Christless  civilization  is  always  and  everywhere  a  curse 
rather  than  a  blessing.  From  the  Garden  of  Eden  down,  the 
fall  of  man  has  resulted  from  "  the  increase  of  knowledge  and 
of  power  unaccompanied  by  reverence.  .  .  .  No  evolu- 
tion is  stable  which  neglects  the  moral  factor  or  seeks  to  shake 
itself  free  from  the  eternal  duties  of  obedience  and  of  faith. 
.  .  The  Song  of  Lamech  echoes  from  a  remote  antiquity 
the  savage  truth  that  '  the  first  results  of  civilization  are  to 
equip  hatred  and  render  revenge  more  deadly,  ...  a 
savage  exultation  in  the  fresh  power  of  vengeance  which  all  the 
novel  instruments  have  placed  in  their  inventor's  hands.'  "  ^ 

What  is  civilization  without  the  gospel?  The  essential  ele- 
ments of  our  civilization  are  the  fruits  of  Christianity,  and  the 
tree  cannot  be  transplanted  without  its  roots.  Can  a  railroad 
or  a  plow  convert  a  man  ?  They  can  add  to  his  material  com- 
fort ;  they  can  enlarge  the  opportunities  of  the  gospel,  but  are 
they  the  gospel  itself?  What  does  civilization  without  Chris- 
tianity mean  ?  It  means  the  lust  of  the  European  and  American 
soldiers  which  is  rotting  the  native  Hawaiians,  the  European  and 

'  Christian  Register,  December  3,  1903. 

*  The  Rev.  Dr.  George  Adam  Smith,  D.  D.,  "  Yale  Lectures,"  pp.  95-97. 


128  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

American  liquor  which  is  debauching  the  Africans,  the  opium 
which  is  enervating  the  Chinese,  6,000  tons  a  year  coming  from 
India  at  a  profit  of  $32,000,000  to  the  English  Government.^ 

How  can  such  a  civilization  prepare  the  way  for  Christianity  ? 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Chinese  already  have  a  civilization, 
and  if  our  civilization  is  considered  apart  from  its  distinctively 
Christian  elements,  it  is  not  so  much  superior  to  the  Chinese 
as  we  are  apt  to  imagine.  The  differences  are  chiefly  matters 
of  taste  and  education.  The  truth  is  that  always  and  every- 
where,— 

"  civilization,  so  far  from  obliterating  iniquity,  imports  into  the  world  in- 
iquities of  its  own.  It  changes  to  some  degree  the  aspects  of  iniquity,  but 
does  not  make  them  less.  Further  than  that  its  effect  is  rather  regularly 
to  dress  iniquity  in  a  less  repulsive  and  more  attractive  form,  and  in  that 
way  makes  it  more  difficult  to  get  rid  of  than  before.  Thei-e  is  no  sin  so 
insinuating  as  refined  and  elegant  sin,  and  of  that  civilization  is  the  ex- 
pert patron  and  champion.  The  sin  that  is  the  devil's  chief  stock  in  trade 
is  not  what  is  going  on  in  Hester  Street,  but  on  the  polite  avenues. 
.  .  .  Evangelization  conducts  to  civilization,  but  civilization  has  no 
necessary  bearing  on  evangelization ;  that  is  to  say,  there  is  in  civilization 
no  energy  inherently  calculated  to  yield  gospel  facts.  By  carrying  schools 
and  arts,  trade  and  manufacture,  among  people  that  are  now  savages  you 
may  be  able  to  refine  the  quality  of  their  deviltry,  but  that  is  not  even 
the  first  step  towards  making  angels,  or  even  saints  of  them."* 

Lowell  is  said  to  have  administered  the  following  stinging 
rebuke  to  the  skeptical  critics  who  sneered  about  missionaries 
and  declared  the  adequacy  of  civilization  without  them  : — 

"  When  the  microscopic  search  of  skepticism,  which  has  hunted  the 
heavens  and  sounded  the  seas  to  disprove  the  existence  of  a  Creator,  has 
turned  its  attention  to  human  society  and  has  found  a  place  on  this  planet 
ten  miles  square  where  a  decent  man  can  live  in  decency,  comfort  and 
security,  supporting  and  educating  his  children  unspoiled  and  unpolluted ; 
a  place  where  age  is  reverenced,  manhood  respected,  womanhood  hon- 
oured, and  human  life  held  in  due  regard;  when  skeptics  can  find  such 

'The  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  van  Dyke,  Sermon. 
^  The  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  H.  Parkhurst,  Sermon. 


Foreign  Trade  and  Foreign  Vices         129 

a  place  ten  miles  square  on  this  globe  where  the  gospel  of  Christ  has 
not  gone  and  cleared  the  way,  and  laid  the  foundation  and  made  decency 
and  security  possible,  it  will  then  be  in  order  for  the  skeptical  literati 
to  move  thither  and  there  ventilate  their  views." 

But  we  may  add  Darwin's  conjecture  that  "  should  a  voy- 
ager chance  to  be  at  the  point  of  shipwreck  on  some  unknown 
coast,  he  will  devoutly  pray  that  the  lesson  of  the  missionary 
may  have  extended  thus  far."  Bishop  Thoburn  says  that  no 
nation  without  Christianity  has  ever  advanced  a  step,  and  that 
while  in  Washington  there  are  6,000  models  of  plows  invented 
by  Americans,  India  is  using  the  same  plow  as  in  the  days  of 
David  and  Solomon.  But  wherever  Christ's  gospel  goes,  true 
civilization  appears.  "  A  better  soul  will  soon  make  better  cir- 
cumstances ;  but  better  circumstances  will  not  necessarily  make 
a  better  soul. ' '  * 

"  We  must  be  here  to  work, 
And  men  who  work  can  only  work  for  men, 
And  not  to  work  in  vain  must  comprehend 
Humanity,  and  so  work  humanly, 
And  raise  men's  bodies  still  by  raising  souls." 

*  The  Rev.  Dr.  James  H.  Snowden. 


XI 

THE  BUILDING  OF  RAILWAYS' 

t  I  ^HE  extension  of  trade  has  naturally  been  accom- 
panied not  only  by  the  increase  of  foreign  steamship 
lines  to  the  numerous  port  cities  of  China,  but  by  the 
development  of  almost  innumerable  coastwise  and  river  vessels. 
Many  of  these  are  owned  and  operated  by  the  Chinese  them- 
selves, but  as  steamers  came  with  the  foreigners  and  as  they 
drive  out  the  native  junks  and  bring  beggary  to  their  owners, 
the  masses  of  the  Chinese  cannot  be  expected  to  feel  kindly 
towards  such  competition,  however  desirable  the  steamer  may 
appear  to  be  from  the  view-point  of  a  more  disinterested  ob- 
server. But  this  interference  with  native  customs  has  been  far 
less  revolutionary  than  that  of  the  railways. 

The  pressure  of  foreign  commerce  upon  China  has  naturally 
resulted  in  demands  for  concessions  to  build  railways,  in  order 
that  the  country  might  be  opened  up  for  traffic  and  the  products 
of  the  interior  be  more  easily  and  quickly  brought  to  the  coast. 
The  first  railroad  in  China  was  built  by  British  promoters  in 
1876.  It  ran  from  Shanghai  to  Wu-sung,  only  fourteen  miles. 
Great  was  the  excitement  of  the  populace,  and  no  sooner  was 
it  completed  than  the  Government  bought  it,  tore  up  the  road- 
bed, and  dumped  the  engines  into  the  river.  That  ended 
railway-building  till  1881,  when,  largely  through  the  influence 
of  Wu  Tine-fang,  late  Chinese  Minister  to  the  United  States, 
the  Chinese  themselves,  under  the  guidance  of  an  English 
engineer,  built  a  little  line  from  the  Kai-ping  coal  mines  to 
Taku,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Pei-ho  River  and  the  ocean  gate- 

1  Part  of  this  chapter  appeared  as  an  article  in  the  American  Monthly 
Review  of  Reviews,  February,  1904. 

130 


THE  CHINESE  CART 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW 

A  cart,  a  carrier,  and  a  locomotive  at  Paoting-fu 


The  Building  of  Railways  131 

way  to  the  capital.  Seeing  the  benefit  of  this  road,  the  Chinese 
raised  further  funds,  borrowed  more  from  the  Enghsh,  and 
gradually  extended  it  144  miles  to  Shan-hai  Kwan  on  the 
north,  while  they  ran  another  line  to  Tien-tsin,  twenty-seven 
miles  from  Tong-ku,  and  thence  onward  seventy-nine  miles 
direct  to  Peking.  This  system  forms  the  Imperial  Railway  and 
belongs  to  the  Chinese  Government,  though  bonds  are  held  by 
the  English,  who  loaned  money  for  construction,  and  though 
English  and  American  engineers  built  and  superintended  the 
system.     The  local  staff,  however,  is  Chinese. 

No  more  concessions  were  granted  to  foreigners  till  1895, 
but  then  they  were  given  so  rapidly  that,  in  1899  when  the 
Boxer  Society  first  began  to  attract  attention,  there  were,  in- 
cluding the  Imperial  Railway,  not  only  566  miles  in  operation, 
but  6,000  miles  were  projected,  and  engineers  were  surveying 
rights  of  way  through  whole  provinces.  Much  of  the  com- 
pleted work  was  undone  during  the  destructive  madness  of  the 
Boxer  uprising,  but  reconstruction  began  as  soon  as  the  tumult 
was  quelled.  According  to  the  Archiv fur  Eiseiibahnwesen  of 
Germany,  the  total  length  of  the  railways  in  use  in  1903  in 
China  was  1,236  kilometers  or  about  742  miles. 

Several  foreign  nations  have  taken  an  aggressive  part  in  this 
movement.  In  the  north,  Russia,  not  satisfied  with  a  terminus 
at  cold  Vladivostok  where  ice  closes  the  harbour  nearly  half 
the  year,  steadily  demanded  concessions  which  would  enable 
her  Trans-Siberian  Railway  to  reach  an  ice-free  winter  port, 
and  thus  give  her  a  commanding  position  in  the  Pacific  and  a 
channel  through  which  the  trade  of  northern  Asia  might  reach 
and  enrich  Russia's  vast  possessions  in  Siberia  and  Europe. 
So  Russian  diplomacy  rested  not  till  it  had  secured  the  right  to 
extend  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway  southward  from  Sungari 
through  Manchuria  to  Tachi-chao  near  Mukden.  From  there 
one  branch  runs  southward  to  Port  Arthur  and  Dalny  and 
another  southwestward  to  Shan-hai  Kwan,  where  the  great 
Wall  of  China  touches  the  sea.     As  connection  is  made  at  that 


132  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

point  with  the  Imperial  Railway  to  Taku,  Tien-tsin  and  Peking, 
Moscow  5,746  miles  away,  is  brought  within  seventeen  days  of 
Peking.  Thus,  Russian  influence  had  an  almost  unrestricted 
entrance  to  China  on  the  North,  while  a  third  branch  from 
Mukden  to  Wiju,  on  the  Korean  frontier,  will  connect  with  a 
projected  line  running  from  that  point  southward  to  Seoul,  the 
capital  of  Korea.  A  St.  Petersburg  dispatch,  dated  November 
26,  1903,  states  that  a  survey  has  just  been  completed  from 
Kiakhta,  Siberia,  to  Peking  by  way  of  Gugon,  a  distance  of 
about  a  thousand  miles.  This  road,  if  built,  will  give  the  Rus- 
sians a  short  cut  direct  to  the  capital. 

In  the  populous  province  of  Shantung,  a  German  railroad, 
opened  April  8,  1901,  runs  from  Tsing-tau  on  Kiao-chou  Bay 
into  the  heart  of  the  populous  Shantung  Province  via  Wei- 
hsien.  The  line  already  reaches  the  capital,  Chinan-fu,  while 
ulterior  plans  include  a  line  from  Tsing-tau  via  Ichou-fu  to 
Chinan-fu,  so  that  German  lines  will  ere  long  completely  en- 
circle this  mighty  Province.  At  Chinan-fu,  this  road  will  meet 
another  great  trunk  line,  partly  German  and  partly  English, 
which  is  being  pushed  southward  from  Tien-tsin  to  Chin-kiang. 
An  English  sydicate,  known  as  the  British- Chinese  Corpora- 
tion, is  to  control  a  route  from  Shanghai  via  Soochow  and 
Chin-kiang  to  Nanking  and  Soochow  via  Hangchow  to  Ningpo, 
while  the  Anglo-Chinese  Railway  Syndicate  of  London  is  said 
to  be  planning  a  railway  from  Canton  to  Cheng-tu-fu,  the  pro- 
vincial capital  of  Sze-chuen.  Meanwhile,  the  original  line  from 
Shanghai  to  Wu-sung  has  been  reconstructed  by  the  English. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  concessions  in  China  has  been  ob- 
tained by  the  Anglo-Italian  Syndicate  in  the  Provinces  of 
Shan-si  and  Shen-si  for  it  gives  the  right  to  construct  railways 
and  to  operate  coal  mines  in  a  region  where  some  of  the  most 
extensive  anthracite  deposits  in  the  world  are  located.  A  be- 
ginning has  already  been  made,  and  when  the  lines  are  com- 
pleted, the  industrial  revolution  in  China  will  be  mightily  ad- 
vanced. 


The  Building  of  Railways  133 

An  alleged  Belgian  syndicate,  to  which  was  formed  with  then 
wholly  disinterested  assistance  of  the  French  and  Russian  lega- 
tions, obtained  in  1896  a  concession  to  construct  the  Lu  Han 
Railway  from  Peking  750  miles  southward  to  Hankow,  the 
commercial  metropolis  on  the  middle  Yang-tze  River.  It  is  sig- 
nificant, however,  that  while  the  Belgian  sydicate  was  tempo- 
arily  embarrassed,  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank  of  Peking  aided 
the  Chinese  Director -General  of  Railways  to  begin  the  section 
running  from  Peking  to  Paoting-fu.  The  road  is  already  in 
operation  as  far  as  Shunte-fu,  300  miles  from  Peking,  and  the 
Russo-Chinese  Bank  has  secured  the  right  to  build  a  branch 
line  from  Ching-ting  via  Tai-yuen-fu  to  Si-ngan-fu  in  Shen-si, 
where  it  will  be  well  started  on  the  beaten  caravan  route  be- 
tween north  China  and  Russian  Central  Asia.  On  Novem- 
ber 13,  1903,  the  Belgian  International  Eastern  Company 
signed  a  contract  to  construct  a  railway  from  Kai-feng-fu,  the 
capital  of  the  Province  of  Honan,  no  miles  west  to 
Honan-fu. 

I  found  the  line  running  south  from  Peking  well-built  with 
solid  road-bed,  massive  stone  culverts,  iron  bridges,  and  heavy 
steel  rails.  The  first  and  second  class  coaches  are  not  attract- 
ive in  appearance,  and  though  the  fare  for  the  former  is  double 
that  of  the  latter,  the  chief  discernible  difference  is  that  in  the 
first-class  compartment,  which  is  usually  in  one  end  of  a  second- 
class  car,  the  seats  are  curved  and  the  passengers  fewer  in 
number,  while  in  the  second-class  the  seats  are  straight  boards 
and  are  apt  to  be  crowded  with  Chinese  coolies.  Neither  class 
is  upholstered  and  neither  would  be  considered  comfortable  in 
America,  but  after  the  weeks  I  had  spent  in  a  mule-litter,  any- 
thing on  rails  seemed  luxurious.  Our  train  was  a  mixed  one, — 
the  first-class  compartments  containing  a  few  French  officers, 
the  second-class  filled  with  Chinese  coolies  and  French  soldiers, 
while  a  half-dozen  flat  cars  were  loaded  with  horses  and  mules. 
A  large  Roger's  locomotive  from  Paterson,  New  Jersey,  drew 
our  long  train  smoothly  and  easily,  though  the  schedule  was  so 


134  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

slow  and  the  stops  so  long  that  we  were  seven  hours  and  a  half 
in  making  a  run  of  a  hundred  miles. 

Railway-building  in  South  China,  outside  of  French  terri- 
tory, began  with  a  line  from  Canton  to  Hankow  which  was  pro- 
jected in  1895  by  Senator  Calvin  S.  Brice,  William  Barclay 
Parsons  being  the  engineer.  The  usual  governmental  difficul- 
ties were  encountered,  but  in  1902  an  imperial  decree  gave  the 
concession  to  the  American-China  Development  Company. 
American  capital  will  finance  the  road,  though  with  some 
European  aid.  The  company  has  the  power,  under  its  conces- 
sion, to  issue  fifty-year  five  per  cent,  gold  bonds  to  the  amount 
of  1^42,500,000,  the  interest  being  guaranteed  by  the  Chinese 
Government.  The  main  line  will  be  700  miles  long,  and 
branches  will  increase  the  total  mileage  to  900.  On  November 
15,  1903,  a  section  ten  miles  long  from  Canton  to  Fat-shan  was 
formally  opened  for  traffic  in  the  presence  of  the  Hon.  Francis 
May,  colonial  secretary  and  registrar-general  of  the  Hongkong 
Government,  a  large  number  of  Europeans  and  Americans,  and 
immense  crowds  of  Chinese  who  manifested  their  excitement  by 
an  almost  incessant  rattle  of  fire-crackers.  The  company  ex- 
pected to  have  the  line  completed  to  Sam-shui,  twenty  miles 
beyond  Fat-shan,  by  January  15,  1904.  This  is  a  branch 
line.  The  main  line  will  run  on  the  other  side  of  the  West 
River,  and  Mr.  Willis  E.  Gray,  the  general  manager  and  chief 
engineer,  states  that  he  will  build  from  both  ends  at  the  rate  of 
about  125  miles  a  year.  A  line  from  Kowloon  to  Canton  has 
been  planned  for  some  time  and  it  is  likely  to  be  hastened  by 
the  announcement  in  the  South  China  Morning  Post,  May  1 2, 
1904,  that  an  American-Chinese  syndicate  had  obtained  a  con- 
cession, granted  to  the  authorities  of  Macao  by  China  through 
a  special  Portuguese  Minister,  to  construct  a  railway  from 
Macao  to  Canton.  The  syndicate  hopes  to  secure  American 
capital  and  the  British  merchants  of  Hongkong  are  a  little 
nervous  as  they  think  of  the  possibility  of  an  independent  out- 
let for  the  Canton-Hankow  Railway  at  Macao. 


The  Building  of  Railways  135' 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  if  these  vast  schemes  can  be  real- 
ized there  will  not  only  be  numerous  lines  running  from  the 
coast  into  the  interior,  but  a  great  trunk  line  from  Canton 
through  the  very  heart  of  the  Empire  to  Peking,  where  other 
roads  can  be  taken  not  only  to  Manchuria  and  Korea  but  to 
any  part  of  Europe. 

In  the  farther  south,  the  French  are  equally  busy.  By  the 
Franco-Chinese  Convention  of  June  20,  1895,  a  French 
company  secured  the  right  to  construct  a  railroad  from  Lao- 
kai  to  Yun-nan-fu,  The  French  had  a  road  from  Hai-fong  in 
Tong-king  to  Sang-chou  at  the  Chinese  frontier,  and  in  1896 
they  obtained  from  China  a  concession  to  extend  it  to  Nanning- 
fu,  on  the  West  River.  This  privilege  has  since  been  enlarged 
so  that  the  line  will  be  continued  to  the  treaty  port  of  Pak-hoi 
on  the  Gulf  of  Tong-king.  The  French  fondly  dream  of  the 
time  when  they  can  extend  their  Yun-nan  Railway  northward 
till  it  taps  and  makes  tributary  to  French  Indo-China  the  vast 
and  fertile  valley  of  the  upper  Yang-tze  River.  Meanwhile, 
the  English  talk  of  a  line  from  Kowloon,  opposite  Hongkong, 
to  Canton,  and  of  connecting  their  Burma  Railroad,  which 
already  runs  from  Rangoon  to  Kun-long  ferry,  with  the 
Yang-tze  valley,  so  that  the  enormous  trade  of  southern  interior 
China  may  not  flow  into  a  French  port,  as  the  French  so 
ardently  desire,  but  into  an  English  city. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  describe  adequately  the  far- 
reaching  effect  upon  China  and  the  Chinese  of  this  extension  of 
modern  railways.  We  have  had  an  illustration  of  its  meaning 
in  America,  where  the  transcontinental  railroads  resulted  in 
the  amazing  development  of  our  western  plains  and  of  the 
Pacific  Coast.  The  effect  of  such  a  development  in  China  can 
hardly  be  overestimated,  for  China  has  more  than  ten  times  the 
population  of  the  trans-Mississippi  region  while  its  territory  is 
vaster  and  equally  rich  in  natural  resources.  As  I  travelled 
through  the  land,  it  seemed  to  me  that  almost  the  whole 
northern  part  of  the  Empire  was  composed  of  illimitable  fields 


136  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

of  wheat  and  millet,  and  that  in  the  south  the  millions  of  paddy 
plots  formed  a  rice-field  of  continental  proportions.  Hidden 
away  in  China's  mountains  and  underlying  her  boundless 
plateaus  are  immense  deposits  of  coal  and  iron  ;  while  above 
any  other  country  on  the  globe,  China  has  the  labour  for  the 
development  of  agriculture  and  manufacture.  Think  of  the 
influence  not  only  upon  the  Chinese  but  the  whole  world, 
when  railroads  not  only  carry  the  corn  of  Hunan  to  the  famine 
sufferers  in  Shantung,  but  when  they  bring  the  coal,  iron  and 
other  products  of  Chinese  soil  and  industry  within  reach  of 
steamship  lines  running  to  Europe  and  America,  To  make 
all  these  resources  available  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  in  turn 
to  introduce  among  the  426,000,000  of  the  Chinese  the  prod- 
ucts and  inventions  of  Europe  and  America,  is  to  bring  about 
an  economic  transformation  of  stupendous  proportions. 

Imagine,  too,  what  changes  are  involved  in  the  substitu- 
tion of  the  locomotive  for  the  coolie  as  a  motive  power,  the 
freight  car  for  the  wheelbarrow  in  the  shipment  of  produce, 
and  the  passenger  coach  for  the  cart  and  the  mule-litter  in  the 
transportation  of  people.  Railways  will  inevitably  inaugurate 
in  China  a  new  era,  and  when  a  new  era  is  inaugurated  for 
one-third  of  the  human  race  the  other  two-thirds  are  certain  to 
be  affected  in  many  ways. 

That  the  transformation  is  attended  by  outbreaks  of  violence 
is  natural  enough.  Even  such  a  people  as  the  English  and  the 
Scotch  were  at  first  inimical  to  railroads,  and  it  is  notorious 
that  the  great  Stephenson  had  to  meet  not  only  ridicule  but 
strenuous  opposition.  Everybody  knows,  too,  that  in  the 
United  States  stage  companies  and  stage  drivers  did  all  they 
could  to  prevent  the  building  of  railroads,  and  that  learned 
gentlemen  made  eloquent  speeches  which  proved  to  the  entire 
satisfaction  of  their  authors  that  railways  would  disarrange  all 
the  conditions  of  society  and  business  and  bring  untold  evils 
in  their  train.  If  the  alert  and  progressive  Anglo-Saxon  took 
this  initial  position,  is  it  surprising  that  it  should  be  taken  with 


The  Building  of  Railways  137 

far  greater  intensity  by  Orientals  who  for  uncounted  centuries 
have  plodded  along  in  perfect  contentment,  and  who  now  find 
that  the  whole  order  of  living  to  which  they  and  their  fathers 
have  become  adapted  is  being  shaken  to  its  foundation  by  the 
iron  horse  of  the  foreigner  ?  Millions  of  coolies  earn  a  living 
by  carrying  merchandise  in  baskets  or  wheeling  it  in  barrows 
at  five  cents  a  day.  A  single  railroad  train  does  the  work  of  a 
thousand  coolies,  and  thus  deprives  them  of  their  means  of 
support.  Myriads  of  farmers  grew  the  beans  and  peanuts  out 
of  which  illuminating  oil  was  made.  But  since  American 
kerosene  was  introduced  in  1864,  its  use  has  become  well-nigh 
universal,  and  the  families  who  depended  upon  the  bean-oil  and 
peanut-oil  market  are  starving.  Cotton  clothing  is  generally 
worn  in  China,  except  by  the  better  classes,  and  China 
formerly  made  her  own  cotton  cloth.  Now  American  manu- 
facturers can  sell  cotton  in  China  cheaper  than  the  Chinese  can 
make  it  themselves. 

All  this  is,  of  course,  inevitable.  It  is  indeed  for  the  best  in- 
terests of  the  people  of  China  themselves,  but  it  enables  us  to 
understand  why  so  many  of  the  Chinese  resent  the  introduction 
of  foreign  goods.  That  much  of  this  business  is  passing  into 
the  hands  of  the  Chinese  themselves  does  not  help  the  matter, 
for  the  people  know  that  the  goods  are  foreign,  and  that  the 
foreigners  are  responsible  for  their  introduction. 

Nor  are  racial  prejudices  and  vested  interests  the  only  foes 
which  the  railway  has  to  encounter  in  China.  As  we  have 
seen,  the  Chinese,  while  not  very  religious,  are  very  supersti- 
tious. They  people  the  earth  and  air  with  spirits,  who,  in  their 
judgment,  have  baleful  power  over  man.  Before  these  spirits 
they  tremble  in  terror,  and  no  inconsiderable  part  of  their 
time  and  labour  is  devoted  to  outwitting  them,  for  the  Chinese 
do  not  worship  the  spirits,  except  to  propitiate  and  deceive 
them.  They  believe  that  the  spirits  cannot  turn  a  corner,  but 
must  move  in  a  straight  line.  Accordingly,  in  China  you  do 
not  often  find  one  window  opposite  another  window,  lest  the 


138  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

spirits  may  pass  through.  You  will  seldom  find  a  straight 
road  from  one  village  to  another  village,  but  only  a  distract- 
ingly  circuitous  path,  while  the  roads  are  not  only  crooked,  but 
so  atrociously  bad  that  it  is  difficult  for  the  foreign  traveller  to 
keep  his  temper.  The  Chinese  do  not  count  their  own  incon- 
venience if  they  can  only  baffle  their  demoniac  foes.  It  is  the 
custom  of  the  Chinese  to  bury  their  dead  wherever  a  geoman- 
cer  indicates  a  "  lucky  "  place.  So  particular  are  they  about 
this  that  the  bodies  of  the  wealthy  are  often  kept  for  a  consid- 
erable period  while  a  suitable  place  of  interment  is  being 
found.  In  Canton  there  is  a  spacious  enclosure  where  the 
coffins  sometimes  lie  for  years,  each  in  a  room  more  or  less 
elaborate  according  to  the  taste  or  ability  of  the  family.  The 
place  once  chosen  immediately  becomes  sacred.  In  a  land 
which  has  been  so  densely  populated  for  thousands  of  years, 
graves  are  therefore  not  only  innumerable  but  omnipresent. 
In  my  travels  in  China,  I  was  hardly  ever  out  of  sight  of  these 
conical  mounds  of  the  dead,  and  as  a  rule  I  could  count  hun- 
dreds of  them  from  my  shendza. 

Every  visitor  to  Canton  and  Chefoo  will  recall  the  hilly 
regions  just  outside  of  the  old  city  walls  that  are  literally  cov- 
ered with  graves,  those  of  the  richer  classes  being  marked  by 
small  stone  or  brick  amphitheatres.  Yet  these  are  cemeteries 
not  because  they  have  been  set  apart  for  that  purpose,  but  be- 
cause graves  have  gradually  filled  all  available  spaces. 

The  Chinese  reverence  their  dead  and  venerate  the  spots  in 
which  they  lie.  From  a  Chinese  view-point  it  is  an  awful  thing 
to  desecrate  them.  Not  only  property  and  those  sacred  feel- 
ings with  which  all  peoples  regard  their  dead  are  involved  but 
also  the  vital  religious  question  of  ancestral  worship.  Accord- 
ingly Chinese  law  protects  all  graves  by  heavy  sanctions,  im- 
posing the  death  penalty  by  strangling  on  the  malefactor  who 
opens  a  grave  without  the  permission  of  the  owner,  and  by  de- 
capitation if  in  doing  so  the  coffin  is  opened  or  broken  so  as 
to   expose   the   body  to   view.     Imagine    then    their    feelings 


The  Building  of  Railways  139 

when  they  see  haughty  foreigners  run  a  railroad  straight  as  an 
arrow  from  city  to  city,  opening  a  highway  over  which  the 
dreaded  spirits  may  run,  and  ruthlessly  tearing  through  the 
tombs  hallowed  by  the  most  sacred  associations. 

No  degree  of  care  can  avoid  the  irritations  caused  by  railway 
construction.  In  building  the  line  from  Tsing-tau  to  Kiao-chou, 
a  distance  of  forty-six  miles,  the  Germans,  as  far  as  practi- 
cable, ran  around  the  places  most  thickly  covered  with  graves. 
But  in  spite  of  this,  no  less  than  3,000  graves  had  to  be  re- 
moved. It  was  impossible  to  settle  with  the  individual  owners, 
as  it  was  difficult  in  many  cases  to  ascertain  who  they  were, 
most  of  the  graves  being  unmarked,  and  some  of  the  families 
concerned  having  died  out  or  moved  away.  Moreover,  the 
Oriental  has  no  idea  of  time,  and  dearly  loves  to  haggle, 
especially  with  a  foreigner  whom  he  feels  no  compunction  in 
swindling.  So  the  railway  company  made  its  negotiations 
with  the  local  magistrates,  showing  them  the  routes,  indicat- 
ing the  graves  that  were  in  the  way,  and  paying  them  an 
average  of  $^  (Mexican)  for  removing  each  grave,  they  to 
find  and  settle  with  the  owners.  This  was  believed  to  be  fair, 
for  $3  is  a  large  sum  where  the  coin  in  common  circulation 
is  the  copper  "cash,"  so  small  in  value  that  1,600  of  them 
equal  a  gold  dollar,  and  where  a  few  dozen  cash  will  buy  a 
day's  food  for  an  adult.  But  while  some  of  the  Chinese  were 
glad  to  accept  this  arrangement,  others  were  not.  They  wanted 
more,  or  they  had  special  affection  for  the  dead,  or  that  par- 
ticular spot  had  been  carefully  selected  because  it  was  favoured 
by  the  spirits.  Besides,  the  magistrates  doubtless  kept  a  part 
of  the  price  as  their  share.  Chinese  officials  are  underpaid, 
are  expected  to  "squeeze"  commissions,  and  no  funds  can 
pass  through  their  hands  without  a  percentage  of  loss.  Then, 
as  the  Asiatic  is  very  deliberate,  the  company  was  obliged  to 
specify  a  date  by  which  all  designated  graves  must  be  removed. 
As  many  of  the  bodies  were  not  taken  up  within  that  time, 
the  company  had  to  remove  them. 


140  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

In  these  circumstances,  we  should  not  be  surprised  that 
some  of  the  most  furiously  anti-foreign  feeling  in  China  was  in 
the  villages  along  the  line  of  that  railroad.  Why  should  the 
hated  foreigner  force  his  line  through  their  country  when  the 
people  did  not  want  it  ?  Of  course,  it  would  save  time,  but, 
as  an  official  naively  said,  "We  are  not  in  a  hurry."  So  the 
villagers  watched  the  construction  with  ill-concealed  anger, 
and  to-day  that  railroad,  as  well  as  most  other  railroads  in 
North  China,  can  only  be  kept  open  by  detachments  of  foreign 
soldiers  at  all  the  important  stations.  I  saw  them  at  almost 
every  stop, — German  soldiers  from  Tsing-tau  to  Kiao-chou, 
British  from  Tong-ku  to  Peking,  French  from  Peking  to  Pao- 
ting-fu,  etc. 

Nevertheless,  railways  in  China  are  usually  profitable.  It  is 
true  that  the  opposition  to  the  building  of  a  railroad  is  apt  to 
be  bitter,  that  mobs  are  occasionally  destructive,  and  that  loco- 
motives and  other  rolling  stock  rapidly  deteriorate  under  native 
handling  unless  closely  watched  by  foreign  superintendents. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Government  is  usually  forced  to 
pay  indemnities  for  losses  resulting  from  violence.  The  road, 
too,  once  built,  is  in  time  appreciated  by  the  thrifty  Chinese, 
who  swallow  their  prejudices  and  patronize  it  in  such  enormous 
numbers,  and  ship  by  it  such  quantities  of  their  produce,  that 
the  business  speedily  becomes  remunerative,  while  the  popula- 
tion and  the  resources  of  the  country  are  so  great  as  to  afford 
almost  unlimited  opportunity  for  the  development  of  traffic. 

As  a  rule,  on  all  the  roads,  the  first-class  compartments, 
when  there  are  any,  have  comparatively  few  passengers,  chiefly 
officials  and  foreigners.  The  second-class  cars  are  well  filled 
with  respectable-looking  people,  who  are  apparently  small  mer- 
chants, students,  minor  officials,  etc.  The  third-class  cars, 
which  are  usually  more  numerous,  are  packed  with  chattering 
peasants.  The  first-class  fares  are  about  the  same  as  ordinary 
rates  in  the  United  States.  The  second-class  are  about  half 
the  first-class  rates,  and   the  third-class  are  often  less  than  the 


The  Building  of  Railways  141 

equivalent  of  a  cent  a  mile.  This  is  a  wise  adjustment  in  a 
land  where  the  average  man  is  so  thrifty  and  so  poor  that  he 
would  not  and  could  not  pay  a  price  which  would  be  deemed 
moderate  in  America,  and  where  his  scale  of  living  makes  him 
content  with  the  rudest  accommodations.  Very  little  baggage 
is  carried  free,  twenty  pounds  only  on  the  German  lines,  so 
that  excess  baggage  charges  amount  to  more  than  in  America. 
The  freight  cars,  during  my  visit,  were,  for  the  most  part, 
loaded  with  the  materials  and  supplies  necessitated  by  the  work 
of  railway-construction  and  by  the  extensive  rebuilding  of  the 
native  and  foreign  property  which  had  been  destroyed  by  the 
Boxers.  But  in  normal  conditions  the  railways  carry  inland  a 
large  number  of  foreign  manufactured  articles,  and  in  turn 
bring  to  the  ports  the  wheat,  rice,  peanuts,  ore,  coal,  pelts, 
silk,  wool,  cotton,  matting,  paper,  straw-braid,  earthenware, 
sugar,  tea,  tobacco,  fireworks,  fruit,  vegetables,  and  other 
products  of  the  interior.  Short  hauls  are  the  rule,  thus  far, 
both  for  passengers  and  freight.  This  is  partly  because  the 
long-distance  lines  within  the  Empire  are  not  yet  completed, 
and  partly  because  the  typical  Chinese  of  the  lower  classes  in 
the  interior  provinces  has  never  been  a  score  of  miles  away  from 
his  native  village  in  his  life,  and  has  been  so  accustomed  to  re- 
gard a  wheelbarrow  trip  of  a  dozen  miles  as  a  long  journey 
that  he  is  a  little  cautious,  at  first,  in  lengthening  his  radius  of 
movement.  But  he  soon  learns,  especially  as  the  struggle  for 
existence  in  an  overcrowded  country  begets  a  desire  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  an  opportunity  to  better  his  condition  elsewhere. 
Once  fairly  started,  he  is  apt  to  go  far,  as  the  numbers  of 
Chinese  in  Siam,  the  Philippines,  and  America  clearly  show. 
The  literary  and  official  classes  are  less  apt  to  go  abroad,  but 
they  are  more  accustomed  to  moving  about  within  the  limits 
of  the  Empire,  as  they  must  go  to  the  central  cities  for  their  ex- 
aminations, and  as  offices  are  held  for  such  short  terms  that 
magistrates  are  frequently  shifted  from  province  to  province. 
When  this  vast  population  of  naturally  industrious  and  commer- 


142  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

cial  people  becomes  accustomed  to  railways  and  gets  to  mov- 
ing freely  upon  them,  stupendous  things  are  likely  to  happen, 
both  for  China  and  for  the  world. 

And  so  the  foreign  syndicates  relentlessly  continue  the  work 
of  railway-construction.  Trade  cannot  be  checked.  It  ad- 
vances by  an  inherent  energy  which  it  is  futile  to  ignore.  And 
it  ought  to  advance  for  the  result  will  inevitably  be  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  China.  A  locomotive  brings  intellectual  and  phys- 
ical benefits,  the  appliances  which  mitigate  the  poverty  and 
barrenness  of  existence  and  increase  the  ability  to  provide  for 
the  necessities  and  the  comforts  of  life.  In  one  of  our  great 
locomotive  works  in  America  I  once  saw  twelve  engines  in  con- 
struction for  China,  and  my  imagination  kindled  as  I  thought 
what  a  locomotive  means  amid  that  stagnant  swarm  of  human- 
ity, how  impossible  it  is  that  any  village  through  which  it  has 
once  run  should  continue  to  be  what  it  was  before,  how  its 
whistle  puts  to  flight  a  whole  brood  of  hoary  superstitions  and 
summons  a  long-slumbering  people  to  new  life.  We  need  re- 
gret only  that  these  benefits  are  so  often  accompanied  by  the 
evils  which  disgrace  our  civilization. 


PART  III 

The  Political   Force  and  the  National 

Protest 


XII 

THE  AGGRESSIONS  OF  EUROPEAN  POWERS 

THE  political  force  was  set  in  motion  partly  by  the 
ambitions  of  European  powers  to  extend  their  in- 
fluence in  Asia,  and  partly  by  the  necessity  for  pro- 
tecting the  commercial  interests  referred  to  in  the  preceding 
chapters.  The  conservatism  and  exclusiveness  of  the  Chinese, 
the  disturbance  of  economic  conditions  caused  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  foreign  goods,  and  the  greed  and  brutality  of  foreign 
traders  combined  to  arouse  a  fierce  opposition  to  the  lodgment 
of  the  foreigner.  The  early  trading  ships  were  usually  armed, 
and  exasperated  by  the  haughtiness  and  duplicity  of  the  Chi- 
nese officials  and  their  greedy  disposition  to  mulct  the  white 
trader,  they  did  not  hesitate  to  use  force  in  eff'ecting  their  pur- 
pose. 

But  the  nations  of  Europe,  becoming  more  and  more  con- 
vinced of  the  magnitude  of  the  Chinese  market,  pressed  reso- 
lutely on ;  and  with  the  hope  of  creating  a  better  understand- 
ing and  of  opening  the  ports  to  trade,  they  sent  envoys  to 
China.  The  arrival  of  these  envoys  precipitated  a  new  con- 
troversy, for  the  Chinese  Government  from  time  immemorial 
considered  itself  the  supreme  government  of  the  world,  and, 
not  being  accustomed  to  receive  the  agents  of  other  nations  ex- 
cept as  inferiors,  was  not  disposed  to  accord  the  white  man 
any  diff'erent  treatment.  The  result  was  a  series  of  collisions 
followed  by  territorial  aggressions  that  were  numerous  enough 
to  infuriate  a  more  peaceably  disposed  people  than  the 
Chinese. 

The  Portuguese  were  the  first  to  come,  a  ship  of  those  ven- 

M5 


146  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

turesome  traders  appearing  near  Canton  in  15 16.  Its  recep- 
tion was  kindly,  but  when  the  next  year  brought  eight  armed 
vessels  and  an  envoy,  the  friendliness  of  the  Chinese  changed 
to  suspicion  which  ripened  into  hostility  when  the  Portuguese 
became  overbearing  and  threatening.  Violence  met  with 
violence.  It  is  said  that  armed  parties  of  Portuguese  went  into 
villages  and  carried  off  Chinese  women.  Feuds  multiplied  and 
became  more  bloody.  At  Ningpo,  the  Chinese  made  awful  re- 
prisal by  destroying  thirty-five  Portuguese  ships  and  killing  800 
of  their  crews.  The  execution  of  one  or  more  of  the  members 
of  a  delegation  to  Peking  brought  matters  to  a  crisis,  and  in 
1534,  the  Portuguese  transferred  their  factories  to  Macao, 
which  they  have  ever  since  held,  though  it  was  not  till  1887 
that  their  position  there  was  officially  recognized.  Portuguese 
power  has  waned  and  Macao  to-day  is  an  unimportant  place 
politically,  but  it  is  significant  that  this  early  foreign  settlement 
in  China  has  been  and  still  is  such  a  moral  plague  spot  that 
the  Chinese  may  be  pardoned  if  their  first  impressions  of  the 
white  man  were  unfavourable. 

The  Spaniards  were  the  next  Europeans  with  whom  the 
Chinese  came  into  contact.  In  this  case,  however,  the  contact 
was  due  not  so  much  to  the  coming  of  the  Spaniards  to  China 
as  to  their  occupation  in  1543  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  with 
which  the  Chinese  had  long  traded  and  where  they  had  already 
settled  in  considerable  numbers.  Mutual  jealousies  resulted 
and  Castilian  arrogance  and  brutality  ere  long  engendered  such 
bitterness  that  massacre  after  massacre  of  the  Chinese  occurred, 
that  of  1603  almost  exterminating  the  Chinese  population  of 
Manila. 

The  growing  demand  for  coffee,  which  Europeans  had  first 
received  in  1580  from  Arabia,  brought  Dutch  ships  into  Asiatic 
waters  in  1598.  After  hostile  experiences  with  the  Portuguese 
at  Macao,  they  seized  the  Pescadores  Islands  in  1622.  But  the 
opposition  of  the  Chinese  led  the  Dutch  to  withdraw  to  For- 
mosa, where  their  stormy  relations  with  natives,  Chinese  from 


The  Aggressions  of  European  Powers      147 

the  mainland  and  Japanese  finally  resulted  in  their  expulsion  in 
1662.  Since  then  the  Dutch  have  contented  themselves  with  a 
few  trading  factories  chiefly  at  Canton  and  with  their  possessions 
in  Malaysia,  so  that  they  have  been  less  aggressive  in  China 
than  several  other  European  nations. 

A  more  formidable  power  appeared  on  the  scene  in  1635, 
when  four  ships '  of  the  English  East  India  Company  sailed  up 
the  Pearl  River.  The  temper  of  the  newcomers  was  quickly 
shown  when  the  Chinese,  incited  by  the  jealous  Portuguese, 
sought  to  prevent  their  lodgment,  for  the  English,  so  the  record 
quaintly  runs,  "did  on  a  sudden  display  their  bloody  ensigns, 
and  .  .  .  each  ship  began  to  play  furiously  upon  the  forts 
with  their  broadsides  .  .  .  put  on  board  all  their  ord- 
nance, fired  the  council-house,  and  demolished  all  they  could." 
Then  they  sailed  on  to  Canton,  and  when  their  peremptory  de- 
mand for  trading  privileges  was  met  with  evasion  and  excuses, 
they  "  pillaged  and  burned  many  vessels  and  villages  . 
spreading  destruction  with  fire  and  sword."  Describing  this 
incident.  Sir  George  Staunton,  Secretary  of  the  first  British 
embassy  to  China,  naively  remarked — "The  unfortunate  cir- 
cumstances under  which  the  English  first  got  footing  in  China 
must  have  operated  to  their  disadvantage  and  rendered  their 
situation  for  some  time  peculiarly  unpleasant."  ^  But  as  early 
as  1684,  they  had  established  themselves  in  Canton. 

June  15,  1834,  a  British  Commission  headed  by  Lord  Napier 
arrived  at  Macao,  and  the  25th  of  the  same  month  proceeded 
to  Canton  empowered  by  an  act  of  Parliament  to  negotiate 
with  the  Chinese  regarding  trade  "  to  and  from  the  dominions 
of  the  Emperor  of  China,  and  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  and 
promoting  such  trade."'  The  government  of  Canton,  how- 
ever, refused  to  receive  Lord  Napier's  letter  for  the  character- 

'  Parker,  "  China,"  p.  9,  places  the  number  of  ships  at  five  and  the  date 
as  1637. 

'  Foster,  "  American  Diplomacy  in  the  Orient,"  p.  5. 
3  Foster,  p.  57. 


148  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

istic  reason  that  it  did  not  purport  to  be  a  petition  from  an  in- 
ferior to  a  superior.  In  explaining  the  matter  to  the  Hong 
merchants  with  a  view  to  their  bringing  the  explanation  to  the 
attention  of  Lord  Napier,  the  haughty  Governor  reminded  them 
that  foreigners  were  allowed  in  China  only  as  trading  agents, 
and  that  no  functionary  of  any  political  rank  could  be  allowed 
to  enter  the  Empire  unless  special  permission  were  given  by  the 
Imperial  Government  in  response  to  a  respectful  petition.  He 
added : — 

"To  sum  up  the  whole  matter,  the  nation  has  its  laws.  Even 
England  has  its  laws.  How  much  more  the  Celestial  Empire !  How 
flaming  bright  are  its  great  laws  and  ordinances.  More  terrible  than 
the  awful  thunderbolts!  Under  this  whole  bright  heaven,  none  dares 
to  disobey  them.  Under  its  shelter  are  the  four  seas.  Subject  to  its 
soothing  care  are  ten  thousand  kingdoms.  The  said  barbarian  eye  (Lord 
Napier),  having  come  over  a  sea  of  several  myriads  of  miles  in  extent  to 
examine  and  have  superintendence  of  affairs,  must  be  a  man  thoroughly 
acquainted  with   the  principles  of  high  dignity."  1 

As  might  be  expected,  the  equally  haughty  British  represent- 
ative indignantly  protested  ;  but  without  avail.  He  was  asked 
to  return  to  Macao,  and  was  informed  that  the  Governor  could 
not  have  any  further  communication  with  him  except  through 
the  Hong  merchants,  and  in  the  form  of  a  respectful  petition. 
The  Governor  indignantly  declared  :  — 

"  There  has  never  been  such  a  thing  as  outside  barbarians  sending  a 
letter.  .  .  .  It  is  contrary  to  everything  of  dignity  and  decorum.  The 
thing  is  most  decidedly  impossible.  .  .  .  The  barbarians  of  this  na- 
tion (Great  Britain)  coming  to  or  leaving  Canton  have  beyond  their  trade 
not  any  public  business ;  and  the  commissioned  officers  of  the  Celestial 
Empire  never  take  cognizance  of  the  trivial  affairs  of  trade.  .  .  .  The 
some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  commercial  duties  yearly  coming  from  the 
said  nation  concern  not  the  Celestial  Empire  to  the  extent  of  a  hair  or  a 
feather's  down.  The  possession  or  absence  of  them  is  utterly  unworthy 
of  one  careful  thought."  * 

>  Foster,  p.  59,  '  /did,  p.  60. 


The  Aggressions  of  European  Powers      149 

Whereupon  the  proud  Briton  pubHshed  and  distributed  a  re- 
view of  the  case,  as  he  saw  it,  which  closed  as  follows : — 

"  Governor  Loo  has  the  assurance  to  state  in  the  edict  of  the  2d  instant 
that  '  the  King  (my  master)  has  hitherto  been  reverently  obedient.'  I 
must  now  request  you  to  declare  to  them  (the  Hong  merchants)  that  His 
Majesty,  the  King  of  England,  is  a  great  and  powerful  monarch,  that  he 
rules  over  an  extent  of  territory  in  the  four  quarters  of  the  world  more 
comprehensive  in  space  and  infinitely  more  so  in  power  than  the  whole 
empire  of  China ;  that  he  commands  armies  of  bold  and  fierce  soldiers, 
who  have  conquered  wherever  they  went ;  and  that  he  is  possessed  of 
great  ships,  where  no  native  of  China  has  ever  yet  dared  to  show  his  face. 
Let  the  Governor  then  judge  if  such  a  monarch  will  be  '  reverently  obe- 
dient '  to  any  one."  ' 

The  result  of  the  increasing  irritation  was  a  decree  by  the 
Governor  of  Canton  peremptorily  forbidding  all  further  trade 
with  the  English,  and  in  retaliation  the  landing  of  a  British 
force,  the  sailing  of  British  war-ships  up  the  river  and  a  battle 
at  the  Bogue  Forts  which  guarded  the  entrance  of  Canton.  A 
truce  was  finally  arranged  and  Lord  Napier's  commission  left 
for  Macao,  August  21st,  where  he  died  September  nth  of  an 
illness  which  his  physician  declared  was  directly  due  to  the 
nervous  strain  and  the  many  humiliations  which  he  had  suf- 
fered in  his  intercourse  with  the  Chinese  authorities.  The 
Governor  meantime  complacently  reported  to  Peking  that  he  had 
driven  off  the  barbarians  ! 

The  strain  was  intensified  by  the  determination  of  the 
British  to  bring  opium  into  China.  The  Chinese  authorities 
protested  and  in  1839  the  Chinese  destroyed  22,299  chests 
of  opium  valued  at  $9,000,000,  from  motives  about  as 
laudable  as  those  which  led  our  revolutionary  sires  to  empty 
English  tea  into  Boston  Harbor.  England  responded  by 
making  war,  the  result  of  which  was  to  force  the  drug  upon  an 
unwilling  people,  so  that  the  vice  which  is  to-day  doing  more 
to  ruin  the  Chinese  than  all  other  vices  combined  is  directly 

>  Foster,  pp.  6 1,  62. 


150  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

traceable  to  the  conduct  of  a  Christian  nation,  though  the 
England  of  to-day  is  presumably  ashamed  of  this  crime  of  the 
England  of  two  generations  ago. 

It  would,  however,  be  inaccurate  to  represent  Chinese  objec- 
tion to  British  opium  as  the  sole  cause  of  the  "  Opium  War  " 
of  1840,  for  the  indignities  to  which  foreign  traders  and  foreign 
diplomats  were  continually  subjected  in  their  efforts  to  establish 
commercial  and  political  relations  with  the  Chinese  were  rap- 
idly drifting  the  two  nations  into  war.  Still,  it  was  peculiarly 
unfortunate  and  it  put  foreigners  grievously  in  the  wrong  be- 
fore the  Chinese  that  the  overt  act  which  developed  the  long- 
gathering  bitterness  into  open  rupture  was  the  righteous  if  ir- 
regular seizure  by  the  Chinese  of  a  poison  that  the  English 
from  motives  of  unscrupulous  greed  were  determined  to  force 
upon  an  unwilling  people.  The  probability  that  war  would 
have  broken  out  in  time  even  if  there  had  been  no  dispute 
about  opium  does  not  mitigate  the  fact  that  from  the  beginning, 
foreign  intercourse  with  China  was  so  identified  with  an  iniqui- 
tous traffic  that  the  Chinese  had  ample  cause  to  distrust  and 
dislike  the  white  man. 

This  hostility  was  intensified  when  the  war  resulted  in  the 
defeat  of  the  Chinese  and  the  treaty  of  Nanking  in  1842  with 
its  repudiation  of  all  their  demands,  the  compulsory  cession  of 
the  island  of  Hongkong,  the  opening  of  not  only  Canton  but 
Amoy,  Foochow,  Shanghai,  and  Ningpo  as  treaty  ports,  the 
location  of  a  British  Consul  in  each  port,  and,  most  necessary 
but  most  humiliating  of  all,  the  recognition  of  the  extra-terri- 
torial rights  of  all  foreigners  so  that  no  matter  what  their  crime, 
they  could  not  be  tried  by  Chinese  courts  but  only  by  their 
own  consuls.  This  treaty  contributed  so  much  to  the  opening 
of  China  that  Dr.  S.  Wells  Williams  characterized  it  as  "one 
of  the  turning  points  in  the  history  of  mankind,  involving  the 
welfare  of  all  nations  in  its  wide-reaching  consequences."  It 
was  therefore  a  lasting  benefit  to  China  and  to  the  world.  But 
the  Chinese  did  not  then  and  do  not  yet  appreciate  the  benefit, 


FRENCH  MILITARY  POST,  SAIGON 


GERMAN   SOLDIERS  ON  THE  BUND,  TIENTSIN 


The  Aggressions  of  European  Powers      151 

especially  as  they  saw  clearly  enough  that  the  motive  of  the 
conqueror  was  his  own  aggrandizement. 

Unhappily,  too,  the  next  war  between  England  and  China, 
though  fundamentally  due  to  the  same  conditions  as  the 
"Opium  War,"  was  again  precipitated  by  a  quarrel  over 
opium,  the  lorcha  Arrow  loaded  with  the  obnoxious  drug  and 
flying  the  British  flag  being  seized  by  the  Chinese.  Once 
more  they  suffered  sore  defeat  and  humiliating  terms  of  peace 
in  the  treaty  of  1858.  The  refusal  of  the  Peking  Government 
to  exchange  the  ratifications  of  the  treaties  caused  a  third  war 
in  i860  in  which  the  British  and  French  captured  Peking,  and 
by  their  excesses  and  cruelties  still  further  added  to  the  already 
long  list  of  reasons  why  the  Chinese  should  hate  their  European 
foes. 

Nor  did  foreign  aggression  stop  with  this  war.  In  1861, 
England,  in  order  to  protect  her  interests  at  Hongkong,  wrested 
from  China  the  adjacent  peninsula  of  Kowloon.  In  1886,  she 
took  Upper  Burma,  which  China  regarded  as  one  of  her  de- 
pendencies. In  1898,  finding  that  Hongkong  was  still  within 
the  range  of  modern  cannon  in  Chinese  waters  seven  miles 
away,  England  calmly  took  400  square  miles  of  additional  terri- 
tory, including  Mirs  and  Deep  Bays. 

The  visitor  does  not  wonder  that  the  British  coveted  Hong- 
kong, for  it  is  one  of  the  best  harbours  in  the  world.  Certainly 
no  other  is  more  impressive.  Noble  hills,  almost  mountains, 
for  many  are  over  1,000  feet  and  the  highest  is  3,200,  rise  on 
every  side.  Crafts  of  all  kinds,  from  sampans  and  slipper- 
boats  to  ocean  liners  and  war-ships,  crowd  the  waters,  for  this 
is  the  third  greatest  port  in  the  world,  being  exceeded  in  the 
amount  of  its  tonnage  only  by  Liverpool  and  New  York.  The 
city  is  very  attractive  from  the  water  as  it  lies  at  the  foot  and 
on  the  slopes  of  the  famous  Peak.  The  Chinese  are  said  to 
number,  as  in  Shanghai,  over  300,000,  while  the  foreign  popu- 
lation is  only  5,000.  But  to  the  superficial  observer  the  pro- 
portions appear  reversed  as  the  foreign  buildings  are  so  spa- 


152  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

cious  and  handsome  that  they  almost  fill  the  foreground.  The 
business  section  of  the  city  is  hot  and  steaming,  but  an  in- 
clined tramway  makes  the  Peak  accessible  and  many  of  the 
British  merchants  have  built  handsome  villas  on  that  cooler, 
breezier  summit,  1,800  feet  above  the  sea.  The  view  is  superb, 
a  majestic  panorama  of  mountains,  harbour,  shipping,  islands, 
ocean  and  city.  By  its  possession  and  fortification  of  this 
island  of  Hongkong,  England  to-day  so  completely  controls 
the  gateway  to  South  China  that  the  Chinese  cannot  get  access 
to  Canton,  the  largest  city  in  the  Empire,  without  running  the 
gauntlet  of  British  guns  and  mines  which  could  easily  sink  any 
ships  that  the  Peking  Government  could  send  against  it,  and 
the  whole  of  the  vast  and  populous  basin  of  the  Pearl  or  West 
River  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  British  whenever  they  care  to  take 
it.  When  we  add  to  these  invaluable  holdings,  the  rights  that 
England  has  acquired  in  the  Yang-tze  Valley  and  at  Wei-hai 
Wei  in  Shantung,  we  do  not  wonder  that  Mr.  E.  H.  Parker, 
formerly  British  Consul  at  Kiung-Chou,  rather  naively  re- 
marks : — 

"  In  view  of  all  this,  no  one  will  say,  however  much  in  matters  of  detail 
we  may  have  erred  in  judgment,  that  Great  Britain  has  failed  to  secure 
for  herself,  on  the  whole,  a  considerable  number  of  miscellaneous  com- 
mercial and  political  advantages  from  the  fdcheiise  situation  arising  out 
of  an  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  Chinese  so  hostile  to  progress." » 

France,  as  far  back  as  1787,  obtained  the  Peninsula  of 
Tourane  and  the  Island  of  Pulu  Condore  by  "treaty"  with 
the  King  of  Cochin-China.  The  French  soon  began  to  regard 
Annam  as  within  their  sphere  of  influence.  In  1858,  they 
seized  Saigon  and  from  it  as  a  base  extended  French  power 
throughout  Cochin-China  and  Cambodia,  the  treaty  of  1862 
giving  an  enforced  legal  sanction  to  these  extensive  claims. 
Not  content  with  this,  France  steadily  pushed  her  conquests 
northward,  compelling  one  concession  after  another  until  in 

»  "  China,"  pp.  95,  96. 


The  Aggressions  of  European  Powers      153 

1882,  she  coolly  decided  to  annex  Tong-king.  The  Chinese 
objected,  but  the  war  ended  in  a  treaty,  signed  June  9,  1885, 
which  gave  France  the  coveted  region.  These  vast  regions, 
which  China  had  for  centuries  regarded  as  tributary  provinces, 
are  now  virtually  French  territory  and  are  openly  governed  as 

such. 

The  beginnings  of  Russia's  designs  upon  China  are  lost  in 
the  haze  of  mediaeval  antiquity.  Russian  imperial  guards  are 
frequently  mentioned  at  the  Mongol  Court  of  Peking  in  the 
thirteenth  century.'  In  1652,  the  Russians  definitely  began 
their  struggle  with  the  Manchus  for  the  Valley  of  the  Amur,  a 
struggle  which  in  spite  of  temporary  defeats  and  innumerable 
disputes  Russia  steadily  and  relentlessly  continued  until  she 
obtained  the  Lower  Amur  in  1855,  the  Ussuri  district  in  i860 
and  finally,  by  the  Cassini  Convention  of  September,  1896, 
the  right  to  extend  the  Siberian  Railway  from  Nerchinsk 
through  Manchuria.  How  Russia  pressed  her  aggressions  in 
this  region  we  shall  have  occasion  to  note  in  a  later  chapter. 

»  Parker,  "  China,"  p.  96. 


XIII 

THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  CHINA 

f  H  ^HE  relations  of  the  United  States  with  China  have, 
as  a  rule,  been  more  sympathetic  than  those  of 
European  nations.  Americans  have  not  sought  terri- 
torial advantage  in  China  and  on  more  than  one  occasion,  our 
Government  has  exerted  its  influence  in  favour  of  peace  and 
justice  for  the  sorely  beset  Celestials. 

The  flag  of  the  United  States  first  appeared  in  Chinese 
waters  on  a  trading  ship  in  1785.  From  the  beginning,  Ameri- 
cans had  less  trouble  with  the  Chinese  than  Europeans  had 
experienced,  partly  because  they  had  recently  been  at  war  with 
the  English  whom  the  Chinese  hated  and  feared,  and  partly 
because  they  were  less  violently  aggressive  in  dealing  with  the 
Chinese.  By  the  treaties  of  July  and  October,  1844,  the 
United  States  peacefully  reaped  the  advantages  which  England 
had  obtained  at  the  cost  of  war.  November  17,  1856,  two 
American  ships  were  fired  upon  by  the  Bogue  Forts,  but  in 
spite  of  the  hostilities  which  resulted,  the  representatives  of  the 
United  States  appeared  to  find  more  favour  with  the  Chinese 
than  those  of  any  other  power  in  the  negotiations  at  Tien-tsin 
in  1858,  and  their  treaty  was  signed  a  week  before  those  of  the 
French  and  the  British.  Article  X  provided  that  the  "  United 
States  shall  have  the  right  to  appoint  consuls  and  other  com- 
mercial agents,  to  reside  at  such  places  in  the  dominions  of 
China  as  shall  be  agreed  to  be  opened  "  ;  and  Article  XXX 
that, 

"  should   at  any  time  the  Ta-Tsing  Empire  grant  to  any  nation  or  the 
merchants  or  citizens  of  any  nation  any  right,  privileges  or  favour  connected 


The  United  States  and  China  155 

with  either  navigation,  commerce,  political  or  other  intercourse  which  is 
not  conferred  by  this  treaty,  such  right,  privilege  and  favour  shall  at  once 
freely  inure  to  the  benefit  of  the  United  States,  its  public  officers,  mer- 
chants and  citizens." 

In  the  settlement  of  damages,  the  Chinese  agreed  to  pay  to 
the  United  States  half  a  million  taels,  then  worth  ^735,288. 
When  the  adjustments  with  individual  claimants  left  a  balance 
of  ^453,400  in  the  treasury,  Congress,  to  the  unbounded  and 
grateful  surprise  of  the  Chinese,  gave  it  back  to  them.  Mr.  Bur- 
lingame,  the  celebrated  United  States  Minister  to  China,  be- 
came the  most  popular  foreign  minister  in  Peking  within  a 
short  time  after  his  arrival  in  1862,  and  so  highly  did  the 
Chinese  Government  appreciate  his  efforts  in  its  behalf  that 
during  the  American  Civil  War  it  promptly  coiTiplied  with  his 
request  to  issue  an  edict  forbidding  all  Confederate  ships  of 
war  from  entering  Chinese  ports.  Mr.  Foster  declares  that 
"  such  an  order  enforced  by  the  governments  of  Europe  would 
have  saved  the  American  commercial  marine  from  destruction 
and  shortened  the  Civil  War."  * 

The  treaty  of  Washington  in  1868  gave  great  satisfaction  to 
the  Chinese  Government  as  it  contained  pacific  and  apprecia- 
tive references  to  China,  an  express  disclaimer  of  any  designs 
upon  the  Empire  and  a  willingness  to  admit  Chinese  to  the 
United  States.  The  treaty  of  1880,  however,  considerably 
modified  this  willingness  and  the  treaty  of  1894  rather  sharply 
restricted  further  immigration.  But  in  the  commercial  treaty 
of  1880,  the  United  States,  at  the  request  of  the  Chinese  Gov- 
ernment, agreed  to  a  clause  peremptorily  forbidding  any  citizen 
of  the  United  States  from  engaging  in  the  opium  traffic  with 
the  Chinese  or  in  any  Chinese  port. 

Our  national  policy  was  admirably  expressed  in  the  note  sent 
by  the  Hon.  Frederick  F.  Low,  United  States  Minister  at 
Peking,  to  the  Tsung-li  Yamen,  March  20,  1871  :  — 

^  Foster,  "  American  Diplomacy  in  the  Orient,"  p.  259. 


10  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

"  To  assure  peace  in  the  future,  the  people  must  be  better  informed  of 
the  purposes  of  foreigners.  They  must  be  taught  that  merchants  are 
engaged  in  trade  which  cannot  but  be  beneficial  to  both  native  and 
foreigner,  and  that  missionaries  seek  only  the  welfare  of  the  people,  and 
are  engaged  in  no  political  plots  or  intrigues  against  the  Government. 
Whenever  cases  occur  in  which  the  missionaries  overstep  the  bounds  of 
decorum,  or  interfere  in  matters  with  which  they  have  no  proper  concern, 
let  each  case  be  reported  promptly  to  the  Minister  of  the  country  to  which 
it  belongs.  Such  isolated  instances  should  not  produce  prejudice  or  en- 
gender hatred  against  those  who  observe  their  obligations,  nor  should 
sweeping  complaints  be  made  against  all  on  this  account.  Those  from 
the  United  States  sincerely  desire  the  reformation  of  those  whom  they 
teach,  and  to  do  this  they  urge  the  examination  of  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
wherein  the  great  doctrines  of  the  present  and  a  future  state,  and  also  the 
resurrection  of  the  soul,  are  set  forth,  with  the  obligation  of  repentance, 
belief  in  the  Saviour,  and  the  duties  of  man  to  himself  and  others.  It  is 
owing,  in  a  great  degree,  to  the  prevalence  of  a  belief  in  the  truth  of 
the  Scriptures  that  Western  nations  have  attained  their  power  and  pros- 
perity. To  enlighten  the  people  is  a  duty  which  the  officials  owe  to  the 
people,  to  foreigners,  and  themselves ;  for  if,  in  consequence  of  ignorance, 
the  people  grow  discontented,  and  insurrection  and  riots  occur,  and  the 
lives  and  property  of  foreigners  are  destroyed  or  imperilled,  the  Govern- 
ment cannot  escape  its  responsibility  for  these  unlawful  acts." 

Referring  to  this  note,  the  Hon.  J.  C.  B.  Davis,  acting 
Secretary  of  State,  wrote  to  Mr.  Low,  October  19,  1871  :  — 

"The  President  regards  it  (your  note  to  the  Tsung-li  Yamen)  as  wise 
and  judicious.  .  .  .  Your  prompt  and  able  answer  to  these  proposi- 
tions leaves  little  to  be  said  by  the  Department.  .  .  .  We  stand  upon 
our  treaty  rights ;  we  ask  no  more,  we  expect  no  less.  If  other  nations 
demand  more,  if  they  advance  pretensions  inconsistent  with  the  dignity 
of  China  as  an  independent  Power,  we  are  no  parties  to  such  acts.  Our 
influence,  so  far  as  it  may  be  legitimately  and  peacefully  exerted,  will  be 
used  to  prevent  such  demands  or  pretensions,  should  there  be  serious  rea- 
son to  apprehend  that  they  will  be  put  forth.  We  feel  that  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Emperor  is  actuated  by  friendly  feelings  towards  the  United 
States." 

But  while  the  Government  of  the  United  States  has  been 
thus  considerate  and  just  in  its  deah'ngs  with  the  Chinese  in 


The  United  States  and  China  157 

China,  it  has,  singularly  enough,  been  most  inconsiderate  and 
unjust  in  its  treatment  of  Chinese  in  its  own  territory,  and  its 
policy  in  this  respect  has  done  not  a  little  to  exasperate  the 
Chinese.  The  Chinese  began  to  come  to  America  in  1848, 
when  two  men  and  one  woman  arrived  in  San  Francisco  on 
the  brig  Eagle.  The  discovery  of  gold  soon  brought  multi- 
tudes, the  year  1852  alone  seeing  2,026  arrivals.  There  are 
now  about  70,000  Chinese  in  California  and  12,000  in  Oregon 
and  Washington.  New  York  has  about  10,000  Chinese,  Phila- 
delphia 5,000,  Boston  800,  and  many  other  cities  have  little 
groups,  while  individual  Chinese  are  scattered  all  over  the 
country,  though  the  total  for  the  United  States  hardly  exceeds 
100,000. 

The  attitude  of  the  people  of  the  Pacific  coast  towards  the 
the  Chinese  is  an  interesting  study.  At  first,  they  welcomed 
their  Oriental  visitors.  In  January,  1853,  the  Hon.  H.  H. 
Haight,  afterwards  Governor  of  California,  offered  at  a  repre- 
sentative meeting  of  San  Francisco  citizens  this  resolution — 
"  Resolved  that  we  regard  with  pleasure  the  presence  of  greater 
numbers  of  these  people  (Chinese)  among  us  as  affording  the 
best  opportunity  of  doing  them  good  and  through  them  of 
exerting  our  influence  in  their  native  land."  And  this  resolu- 
tion was  unanimously  adopted.  Moreover  in  a  new  country, 
where  there  was  much  manual  labour  to  be  done  in  developing 
resources  and  constructing  railways,  and  where  there  were 
comparatively  few  white  labourers,  the  Chinese  speedily  proved 
to  be  a  valuable  factor.  They  were  frugal,  patient,  willing, 
industrious  and  cheap,  and  so  the  corporations  in  particular 
encouraged  them  to  come. 

But  as  the  number  of  immigrants  increased,  first  dislike, 
then  irritation  and  finally  alarm  developed,  particularly  among 
the  working  classes  who  found  their  means  of  livelihood 
threatened  by  the  competition  of  cheaper  labour.  The  news- 
papers began  to  give  sensational  accounts  of  the  "  yellow 
deluge"  that  might  "  swamp  our  institutions  "  and  to  enlarge 


158  New  Forces  In  Old  China 

upon  the  danger  that  white  labourers  would  not  come  to  Cali- 
fornia on  account  of  the  presence  of  Chinese.  The  "sand 
lot  orator "  appeared  with  his  frenized  harangues  and  the 
political  demagogue  sought  favour  with  the  multitudes  by 
pandering  to  their  passions.  Race  prejudice,  moreover,  must 
always  be  taken  into  account,  especially  when  two  races 
attempt  to  live  together.  The  terms  Jew  and  Gentile,  Greek 
and  barbarian,  Roman  and  enemy  are  suggestive  of  the  distrust 
with  which  one  race  usually  regards  another.  Christianity 
has  done  much  to  moderate  it,  but  it  still  exists,  and  let  the 
resident  of  the  North  and  East  who  remembers  the  recent  race 
riots  in  Illinois  and  Ohio  and  New  York  think  charitably  of 
his  brethren  who  are  confronted  by  the  Chinese  problem  in 
California.  So  May  6,  1882,  Congress  passed  the  Restric- 
tion Act,  which,  as  amended  July  5,  1884,  and  reenacted  in 
1903,  is  now  in  force. 

There  are  thousands  of  high-minded  Christian  people  who 
are  unselfishly  and  lovingly  toiling  for  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  welfare  of  this  Asiatic  population  in  America.  They 
rightly  feel  that  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  a  special 
duty  towards  these  Orientals,  that  the  purifying  power  of 
Christianity  can  remove  the  dangers  incident  to  their  presence 
in  our  communities,  and  that  if  we  treat  them  aright  they  will, 
on  their  return  to  China,  mightily  influence  their  countrymen. 
But  the  kindly  efforts  of  these  Christian  people  are  unfortunately 
insufficient  to  offset  the  general  policy  of  the  American  people 
as  a  whole,  especially  as  that  policy  is  embodied  in  a  stern  law 
that  is  most  harshly  enforced. 

Americans  are  apt  to  think  of  themselves  as  China's  best 
friends  and  the  facts  stated  show  that  there  is  some  ground 
for  the  claim.  But  before  we  exalt  ourselves  overmuch,  we 
might  profitably  read  the  correspondence  between  the  Chinese 
Ministers  at  Washington  and  our  Secretaries  of  State  regarding 
the  outrages  upon  Chinese  in  the  United  States.  Many 
Chinese  have  suffered  from  mob  violence  in  San  Francisco  and 


The  United  States  and  China  159 

Tacoma  and  other  Pacific  Coast  cities  almost  as  sorely  as 
Americans  have  suffered  in  China.  Some  years  ago,  they 
were  wantonly  butchered  in  Rock  Springs,  Wyoming,  and  it 
was  as  difficult  for  the  Chinese  to  get  indemnity  out  of  our 
Government  as  it  was  for  the  Powers  to  get  indemnity  out  of 
China  for  the  Boxer  outrages. 

President  Cleveland,  in  a  message  to  Congress  in  1885,  felt 
obliged  to  make  an  allusion  to  this  that  was  doubtless  as  humil- 
iating to  him  as  it  was  to  decent  Americans  everywhere.  The 
Chinese  Minister  to  the  United  States,  in  his  presentation  of 
the  case  to  Secretary  of  State  Bayard,  "massed  the  evidence 
going  to  show  that  the  massacre  of  the  subjects  of  a  friendly 
Power,  residing  in  this  country,  was  as  unprovoked  as  it  was 
brutal ;  that  the  Governor  and  Prosecuting  Attorney  of  the  Terri- 
tory openly  declared  that  no  man  could  be  punished  for  the 
crime,  though  the  murderers  attempted  no  concealment ;  and 
that  all  the  pretended  judicial  proceedings  were  a  burlesque." 
All  this  Mr.  Bayard  was  forced  to  admit.  Indeed  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  characterize  the  proceedings  as  "the  wretched 
travesty  of  the  forms  of  justice,"  nor  did  he  conceal  his 
"indignation  at  the  bloody  outrages  and  shocking  Avrongs  in- 
flicted upon  a  body  of  your  countrymen,"  and  his  mortification 
that  "  such  a  blot  should  have  been  cast  upon  the  record  of  our 
Government."  There  was  sarcastic  significance  in  the  cartoon 
of  the  Chicago  Inter-  Ocean  representing  a  Chinese  reading  a 
daily  paper  one  of  whose  columns  was  headed  "  Massacre  of 
Americans  in  China,"  while  the  other  column  bore  the  heading, 
"  Massacre  of  Chinese  in  America."  Uncle  Sam  stands  at  his 
elbow  and  ejaculates,  "Horrible,  isn't  it?"  To  which  the 
Celestial  blandly  inquires,  "  Which  ?  " 

In  the  North  American  Review  for  March,  1904,  Mr. 
Wong  Kai  Kah,  an  educated  Chinese  gentleman,  plainly  but 
courteously  discusses  this  subject  under  the  caption  of  "  A 
Menace  to  America's  Oriental  Trade."  He  justly  complains 
that    though    the   exclusion    law    expressly   exempts    Chinese 


i6o  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

merchants,  students  and  travellers,  yet  as  a  matter  of  fact  a 
Chinese  gentleman  is  treated  on  his  arrival  as  if  he  were  a 
criminal  and  is  "  detained  in  the  pen  on  the  steamship  wharf 
or  imprisoned  like  a  felon  until  the  customs  officials  are 
satisfied." 

The  Hon.  Chester  Holcombe,  formerly  Secretary  of  the 
American  Legation  at  Peking  and  a  member  of  the  Chinese 
Immigration  Commission  of  1880,  cites  some  ilUustrations  of 
the  harshness  and  unreasonableness  of  the  exclusion  law.  ^  A 
Chinese  merchant  of  San  Francisco  visited  his  native  land  and 
brought  back  a  bride,  only  to  find  that  she  was  forbidden  to 
land  on  American  soil.  Another  Chinese  merchant  and  wife, 
of  unquestioned  standing  in  San  Francisco,  made  a  trip  to 
China,  and  while  there  a  child  was  born.  On  returning  to 
their  home  in  America,  the  sapient  officials  could  interpose  no 
objection  to  the  readmission  of  the  parents,  but  peremptorily 
refused  to  admit  the  three-months  old  baby,  as,  never  having 
been  in  this  country,  it  had  no  right  to  enter  it !  Neither  of 
these  preposterous  decisions  could  be  charged  to  the  stupidity 
or  malice  of  the  local  officials,  for  both  were  appealed  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  Washington  and  were  officially 
sustained  by  him  as  in  accordance  with  the  law,  though  in  the 
latter  case,  the  Secretary,  then  the  Hon.  Daniel  Manning,  in 
approving  the  action,  had  the  courageous  good  sense  to  write  : 
"  Burn  all  this  correspondence,  let  the  poor  little  baby  go 
ashore,  and  don't  make  a  fool  of  yourself." 

Still  more  irritating  and  insulting,  if  that  were  possible,  was 
the  treatment  of  the  Chinese  exhibitors  at  the  Louisiana  Pur- 
chase Exposition  at  St.  Louis  in  1904.  Our  Government 
formally  invited  China  to  participate,  sending  a  special 
commission  to  Peking  to  urge  acceptance.  China  accepted  in 
good  faith,  and  then  the  Treasury  Department  in  Washington 
drew  up  a  series  of  regulations  requiring 

^Article  in  The  Outlook,  April  23,  1904. 


The  United  States  and  China  161 

"  that  each  exhibitor,  upon  arrival  at  any  seaport  in  this  country,  should 
be  photographed  three  times  for  purposes  of  identification,  and  should 
file  a  bond  in  the  penal  sum  of  ^5,000,  the  conditions  of  which  were  that 
he  would  proceed  directly  and  by  the  shortest  route  to  St.  Louis,  would 
not  leave  the  Exposition  grounds  at  any  time  after  his  arrival  there,  and 
would  depart  for  China  by  the  first  steamer  sailing  after  the  close  of  the 
Exposition.  Thus  a  sort  of  Chinese  rogues'  gallery  was  to  be  established 
at  each  port,  and  the  Fair  grounds  were  to  be  made  a  prison  pen  for 
those  who  had  come  here  as  invited  guests  of  the  nation,  whose 
presence  and  aid  were  needed  to  make  the  display  a  success.  It  is  only 
just  to  add  that,  upon  a  most  vigorous  protest  made  against  these  courteous  (?) 
regulations  by  the  Chinese  Government  and  a  threat  to  cancel  their  accept- 
ance of  our  invitation,  the  rules  were  withdrawn  and  others  more  decent 
substituted.  But  the  fact  tliat  they  were  prepared  and  seriously  presented 
to  China  shows  to  what  an  extent  of  injustice  and  discourtesy  our  mis- 
taken attitude  and  action  in  regard  to  Chinese  immigration  has  carried 
us." 

No  right-minded  American  can  read  without  poignant  shame, 
Luella  Miner's  recent  account  *  of  the  experiences  of  Fay  Chi 
Ho  and  Kung  Hsiang  Hsi,  two  Chinese  students  who,  after 
showing  magnificent  devotion  to  American  missionaries  during 
the  horrors  of  the  Boxer  massacres,  sought  to  enter  the  United 
States.  They  were  young  men  of  education  and  Christian 
character  who  wished  to  complete  their  education  at  Oberhn 
College,  but  they  were  treated  by  the  United  States  officials  at 
San  Francisco  and  other  cities  with  a  suspicion  and  brutality 
that  were  "  more  worthy  of  Turkey  than  of  free  Christian 
America."  Arriving  at  the  Golden  Gate,  September  12,  1901, 
it  was  not  until  January  10,  1903,  that  they  succeeded  in 
reaching  Oberlin,  and  those  sixteen  months  were  filled  with  in- 
dignities from  which  all  the  efforts  of  influential  friends  and  of 
the  Chinese  Minister  to  the  United  States  were  unable  to  pro- 
tect them.  Whatever  reasons  there  may  be  for  excluding 
coolie  labourers,  there  can  be  none  for  excluding  the  bright 
young  men  who  come  here  to  study.     "  An  open  door  for  our 

'  "  Two  Heroes  of  Cathay,"  p.  223  sq. 


l62  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

merchants,  our  railway  projectors,  our  missionaries,  we  cry, 
and  at  the  same  time  we  slam  the  door  in  the  faces  of  Chinese 
merchants  and  travellers  and  students — the  best  classes  who 
seek  our  shores." 

The  fear  that  the  Chinese  would  inundate  the  United  States 
if  they  were  permitted  to  come  under  the  same  conditions  as 
Europeans  is  not  justified  by  the  numbers  that  came  before  the 
exclusion  laws  became  so  stringent,  the  total  Chinese  popula- 
tion of  the  United  States  up  to  1880,  when  there  was  no  ob- 
stacle to  their  coming  except  the  general  immigration  law,  be- 
ing only  105,465 — the  merest  handful  among  our  scores  of 
millions  of  people.  The  objections  that  they  are  addicted  to 
gambling  and  immorality,  that  they  come  only  for  temporary 
mercenary  purposes  and  that  they  do  not  become  members  of 
the  body  politic  but  segregate  themselves  in  special  com- 
munities, might  be  urged  with  equal  justice  by  the  Chinese 
against  the  foreign  communities  in  the  port  cities  of  China. 
Segregating  themselves,  indeed  !  How  can  the  Chinese  help 
themselves,  when  they  are  not  allowed  to  become  naturalized 
and  are  treated  with  a  dislike  and  contempt  which  force  them 
back  upon  one  another  ? 

As  for  the  charge  that  they  teach  the  opium  habit  to  white 
boys  and  girls,  it  may  be  safely  affirmed  that  all  the  Americans 
who  have  acquired  that  dread  habit  from  the  Chinese  are  not 
equal  to  a  tenth  of  the  number  of  Chinese  women  and  girls 
who  have  been  given  foul  diseases  by  white  men  in  China. 
Mr.  Holcombe  declares  : — 

"  Our  unfair  treatment  of  China  in  this  business  will  some  day  return 
to  plague  us.  Entirely  aside  from  the  cavalier  and  insulting  manner  with 
which  we  have  dealt  with  China,  and  the  inevitably  injurious  effect  upon 
our  relations  and  interests  there,  it  must  be  said  that  our  action  has  been 
undignified,  unworthy  of  any  great  nation,  a  sad  criticism  upon  our  sense 
of  power  and  ability  to  rule  our  affairs  with  wisdom  and  moderation,  and 
unbecoming  our  high  position  among  the  leading  governments  of  the 
world.     .     .     .     We  have  treated  Chinese  immigrants — never  more  than 


The  United  States  and  China  163 

a  handful  when  compared  with  our  population — as  though  we  were  in  a 
frenzy  of  fear  of  them.  We  have  forsaken  our  wits  in  this  question, 
abandoned  all  self-control,  and  belittled  our  manhood  by  treating  each 
incoming  Chinaman  as  though  he  were  the  embodiment  of  some  huge  and 
hideous  power  which,  once  landed  upon  our  shores,  could  not  be  dealt 
with  or  kept  within  bounds.  Yet  in  point  of  fact  he  is  far  more  easily 
kept  in  bounds  and  held  obedient  to  law  than  some  immigrants  from  Eu- 
rope. ...  It  must  be  admitted  as  beyond  question  that  the  coming 
of  the  Chinese  to  these  shores  should  be  held  under  constant  supervision 
and  strict  limitations.  And  so  should  immigration  from  all  other  coun- 
tries. The  time  has  come  when  we  ought  to  pick  and  choose  with  far 
greater  care  than  is  exercised,  and  to  exclude  large  numbers  who  are  now 
admitted.  .  .  .  It  is  this  discrimination  alone  which  is  unjust  to 
China,  which  she  naturally  resents,  and  which  does  us  serious  harm  in  our 
relations  with  her  people." 

Commenting  on  the  regulations  promulgated  by  the  Secre- 
tary of  Commerce  and  Labour,  July  27,  1903,  regarding  the 
admission  of  Chinese,  the  Hon.  David  J.  Brewer,  Associate 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  declared  : — 

"  Can  anything  be  more  harsh  and  arbitrary  ?  Coming  into  a  port  of 
the  United  States,  as  these  petitioners  did  into  the  port  of  Malone,  placed 
as  they  were  in  a  house  of  detention,  shut  off  from  communication  with 
friends  and  counsel,  examined  before  an  inspector  with  no  one  to  advise  or 
counsel,  only  such  witnesses  present  as  the  inspector  may  designate,  and 
upon  an  adverse  decision  compelled  to  give  notice  of  appeal  within  two 
days,  within  three  days  the  transcript  forwarded  to  the  Commissioner- 
General,  and  nothing  to  be  considered  by  him  except  the  testimony  ob- 
tained in  this  star  chamber  proceeding.  This  is  called  due  process  of 
law  to  protect  the  rights  of  an  American  citizen,  and  sufficient  to  prevent 
inquiry  in  the  courts.     .     .     . 

"  Must  an  American  citizen,  seeking  to  return  to  this  his  native  land,  be 
compelled  to  bring  with  him  two  witnesses  to  prove  the  place  of  his  birth 
or  else  be  denied  his  right  to  return,  and  all  opportunity  of  establishing 
his  citizenship  in  the  courts  of  his  country  ?  No  such  rule  is  enforced 
against  an  American  citizen  of  Anglo-Saxon  descent,  and  if  this  be,  as 
claimed,  a  government  of  laws  and  not  of  men,  I  do  not  think  it  should 
be  enforced  against  American  citizens  of  Chinese  descent.     ,     .     . 

"  Finally,  let  me  say  that  the  time  has  been   when  many  young  men 


164 


New  Forces  in  Old  China 


from  China  came  to  our  educational  institutions  to  pursue  their  studies 
when  her  commerce  sought  our  shores  and  her  people  came  to  build  our 
railroads,  and  when  China  looked  upon  this  country  as  her  best  friend. 
If  all  this  be  reversed  and  the  most  populous  nation  on  earth  becomes  the 
great  antagonist  of  this  Republic,  the  careful  student  of  history  will  recall 
the  words  of  Scripture,  '  they  have  sown  the  wind,  and  they  shall  reap 
the  whirlwind,'  and  for  cause  of  such  antagonism  need  look  no  further 
than  the  treatment  accorded  during  the  last  twenty  years  by  this  country 
to  the  people  of  that  nation."  ' 

Meanwhile,  Mr.  E.  H.  Parker  rather  sarcastically  remarks : — 

"  The  United  States  have  always  been  somewhat  prone  to  pose  as  the  good 
and  disinterested  friend  of  China,  who  does  not  sell  opium  or  exercise  any 
undue  political  influence.  These  claims  to  the  exceptional  status  of  an 
honest  broker  have  been  a  little  shaken  by  the  sharp  treatment  of  Chinese 
in  the  United  States,  Honolulu  and  Manila."* 

1  Dissenting  opinion  in  the  case  of  the  United  States,  Petitioner  vs. 
Sing  Tuck  or  King  Do  and  thirty-one  others,  April  25,  1904. 
«  «  China,"  p.  105. 


XIV 

DIPLOMATIC  RELATIONS— TREATIES 

IN  view  of  some  of  the  facts  presented  in  the  two  preced- 
ing chapters,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  efforts  of  foreign 
powers  to  establish  diplomatic  relations  with  the  Chinese 
Government  were  rather  tempestuous.  A  full  account  of  the 
negotiations  would  require  a  separate  volume.  For  two  gener- 
ations, nation  after  nation  sought  to  protect  its  growing  interests 
in  China  and  to  secure  recognition  from  the  Chinese  Govern- 
ment, only  to  be  met  by  opposition  that  was  sometimes  courte- 
ous and  sometimes  sullen,  but  always  inflexible  until  it  was 
broken  down  by  force.  Each  envoy  on  presenting  his  letters 
was  politely  told  in  substance  that  the  Chinese  official  con- 
cerned was  extremely  busy,  that  to  his  deep  regret  it  would  not 
be  possible  to  grant  an  immediate  conference,  but  that  as  soon 
as  possible  he  would  have  pleasure  in  selecting  a  *'  felicitous 
day  "  on  which  they  could  hold  a  "  pleasant  interview  "  ; '  and 
when  the  envoys,  worn  out  by  the  never-ending  procrastination, 
finally  gave  up  in  disgust  and  announced  their  intention  of  re- 
turning home,  the  typical  Chinese  official  blandly  replied,  as 
the  notorious  Yeh  did  to  United  States  Minister  Marshall  in 
January,  1854, — "  I  avail  myself  of  the  occasion  to  present  my 
compliments,  and  trust  that,  of  late,  your  blessings  have  been 
increasingly  tranquil."  ' 

Scores  of  European  and  American  diplomatic  agents  had 
substantially  the  same  experience.  United  States  Minister 
Reed,  in  1858,  truly  said  that  the  replies  of  the  Chinese  to  the 

'  Foster,  "American  Diplomacy  in  the  Orient,"  p.  205. 
"  Foster,  p.  213, 

165 


l66  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

memorials  and  letters  of  the  foreign  envoys  were  characterized 
by  "  the  same  unmeaning  profession,  the  same  dexterous 
sophistry;  and,  what  is  more  material,  the  same  passive  re- 
sistance; the  same  stolid  refusal  to  yield  any  point  of  sub- 
stance. "  ' 

Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  the  Chinese  had  some  ground  for 
holding  foreign  nations  at  arms'  length  as  long  as  they  could, 
for  with  a  few  exceptions,  prominent  among  whom  were  some 
American  ministers,  notably  Mr.  Burlingame,  the  foreign 
envoys  were  far  from  being  tactful  and  conciliatory  in  their 
methods  of  approach  to  a  proud  and  ancient  people.  Mr. 
Foster  reminds  us  that  in  the  negotiations  which  terminated  in 
the  treaty  of  1858, 

"The  British  were  pushing  demands  not  insisted  upon  by  the  other 
Powers,  and  they  could  only  be  obtained  by  coercive  measures.  The  re- 
ports in  the  Blue  Books  and  the  London  newspapers  show  that  Mr.  Lay^ 
who  personally  conducted  the  negotiations  for  Lord  Elgin,  when  he  found 
the  Chinese  commissioners  obdurate,  was  accustomed  to  raise  his  voice, 
charge  them  with  having  '  violated  their  pledged  word,'  and  threaten 
them  with  Lord  Elgin's  displeasure  and  the  march  of  the  British  troops  to 
Peking.  And  when  this  failed  to  bring  them  to  terms,  a  strong  detach- 
ment of  the  British  army  was  marched  through  Tien-tsin  to  strike  terror 
into  its  officials  and  inhabitants.  Lord  Elgin  in  his  diary  records  the  cli- 
max of  these  demonstrations :  '  I  have  not  written  for  some  days,  but  they 
have  been  busy  ones.  We  went  on  fighting  and  bullying,  and  getting  the 
poor  commissioners  to  concede  one  point  after  another,  till  Friday  the 
25th.'  The  next  day  the  treaty  was  signed,  and  he  closes  the  record  as 
follows  :  'Though  I  have  been  forced  to  act  almost  brutally,  I  am  China's 
friend  in  all  this.'  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  notwithstanding  the  seem- 
ing paradox.  Lord  Elgin  was  thoroughly  sincere  in  this  declaration,  and 
that  his  entire  conduct  was  influenced  by  a  high  sense  of  duty  and  by 
what  he  regarded  as  the  best  interests  of  China."  " 

But  can  we  wonder  that  the  Chinese  were  irritated  and  hu- 
miliated by  the  method  adopted  ? 

1  Foster,  p.  236. 

2"  American  Diplomacy  in  the  Orient,"  pp.  241,  242. 


Diplomatic  Relations — Treaties  167 

That  treaty  of  1858  gave  some  notable  advantages  to  for- 
eigners, for  it  conceded  the  rights  of  foreign  nations  to  send  dip- 
lomatic representatives  to  Peking,  the  rights  of  foreigners  to 
travel,  trade,  buy,  sell  and  reside  in  an  increasing  number  of 
places,  and  on  the  persistent  initiative  of  the  French  envoy, 
powerfully  supported  by  the  famous  Dr.  S.  Wells  Williams, 
Christianity  was  especially  recognized,  and  the  protection,  not 
only  of  missionaries  but  all  Chinese  converts  to  Christianity, 
was  specifically  guaranteed.  Of  course,  by  the  famous  "  most 
favoured  nation  clause  "any  concession  obtained  by  one  country, 
was  immediately  claimed  by  all  other  countries. 

It  was  this  treaty  which  included  the  famous  Toleration 
Clause  regarding  Christian  missions  as  follows : 

"The  principles  of  the  Christian  religion,  as  professed  by  the  Protestant 
and  Roman  Catholic  churches,  are  recognized  as  teaching  men  to  do  good, 
and  to  do  to  others  as  they  would  have  others  do  to  them.  Hereafter 
those  who  quietly  profess  and  teach  these  doctrines  shall  not  be  harassed 
or  persecuted  on  account  of  their  faith.  Any  person,  whether  citizen  of 
the  United  States  or  Chinese  convert,  who,  according  to  these  tenets,  shall 
peaceably  teach  and  practice  the  principles  of  Christianity  shall  in  no  case 
be  interfered  with  or  molested." 

The  charge  has  been  frequently  made  that  this  clause  was 
smuggled  into  the  treaty  without  the  knowledge  of  the  Chinese, 
so  that  the  claims  to  recognition  and  protection  which  were 
subsequently  based  upon  it  rest  upon  an  unfair  foundation.  It 
is  indeed  possible,  as  Dr.  S.  Wells  Williams,  the  author,  frankly 
admits^  "that  if  the  Chinese  had  at  all  comprehended  what 
was  involved  in  these  four  toleration  articles,  they  would  never 
have  signed  one  of  them."  But  perhaps  the  same  thing  might 
be  said  of  most  treaties  that  have  been  signed  in  Asia.  The 
fact  remains,  however,  that  the  articles  referred  to  were  not 
placed  in  them  without  the  knowledge  of  the  Chinese.  Dr. 
Williams  explicitly  states  that  he  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  W.  A.  P. 

i"The  Life  and  Letters  of  Samuel  Wells  Williams,  LL.  D.,"  p.  271, 


i68  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Martin,    called    upon   the   Chinese   Commissioners   and   that 

"  some  of  the  articles  of  our  draft  were  passed  without  objection,  those  re- 
lating to  toleration  (of  Christianity  in  China)  and  the  payment  of  claims 
were  copied  off  to  show  the  Commissioner,  those  permitting  and  regulat- 
ing visits  to  Peking  were  rejected,  and  others  were  amended,  the  colloquy 
being  conducted  with  considerable  animation  and  constant  good  humour 
on  his  part." ' 

In  a  letter  written  many  years  afterwards  and  dated  New 
Haven,  September  12,  1878,  Dr.  Williams  states  that  the  first 
draft  of  the  Toleration  Clauses  was  rejected  by  the  Chinese 
Commissioners,  as  he  believes  at  the  instigation  of  the  French 
Legation,  because  the  clause  recognized  Protestant  missions. 
Dr.  Williams  then  states  that  as  soon  as  he  could,  he  drew  up 
another  form  of  the  same  article  and  laid  it  before  the  Chinese 
Imperial  Commissioners.     Rewrites: — 

"  It  was  quite  the  same  article  as  before,  but  they  accepted  it  without 
any  further  discussion  or  alteration  ;  however,  the  word  '  whoever '  in 
my  English  version  was  altered  by  Mr.  Reed  to  '  any  person,  whether  citi- 
zen of  the  United  States,  or  Chinese  convert,  who  ' — because  he  wished 
every  part  of  the  treaty  to  refer  to  United  States  citizens,  and  cared  not 
very  much  whether  it  had  a  toleration  article  or  not.  I  did  care,  and  was 
thankful  to  God  that  it  was  inserted.  It  is  the  only  treaty  in  existence 
which  contains  the  royal  law." 

In  Dr.  Williams'  Journal  for  June  18,  1858,  the  following 
record  appears : 

"  I  went  to  sleep  last  night  with  the  impression  that  after  such  a  reply 
from  the  Minister  it  would  be  vain  to  urge  a  new  draft,  but  after  a  restless 
sleep  I  awoke  to  the  idea  of  trying  once  more,  this  time  saying  nothing 
about  foreign  missionaries.  The  article  was  sketched  as  soon  as  I  could 
write  it  and  sent  off  by  a  messenger  before  breakfast ;  it  was  a  last 
chance,  and  every  hope  went  with  it  for  success.  At  half-past  nine  an 
answer  came.  Permission  for  Christians  meeting  for  worship  and  the  dis- 
tribution of  books  was  erased,  while  the  words  open  ports  were  inserted 

»«The  Life  and  Letters  of  Samuel  Wells  Williams,  LL.  D.,"  p.  261. 


Diplomatic  Relations — Treaties  169 

in  such  a  connection  that  it  was  rendered  illegal  for  any  one,  native  or 
otherwise,  to  profess  Christianity  anywhere  else.  The  design  was  merely 
to  restrict  missionaries  to  the  ports,  but  the  effect  would  be  detrimental  in 
the  highest  degree  to  natives.  I  decided  at  once  to  go  to  see  the  Vis- 
count and  try  to  settle  the  question  with  him  personally.  Chairs  were 
called,  whose  bearers  seemed  to  Martin  and  me  an  eternity  in  coming,  but 
at  last  we  reached  the  house  where  Captain  Du  Pont  and  his  marines  so 
unexpectedly  turned  up  last  Saturday.  Our  amendment  was  handed  to 
Chang,  who  began  to  cavil  at  it,  but  he  was  promptly  told  that  he  must 
take  it  to  the  Commissioners  for  approval  as  it  stood,  since  this  was  the 
form  we  were  decided  on.  Our  labour  and  anxiety  were  all  repaid,  and 
ended  by  his  return  in  a  few  minutes  announcing  Kweilang's  assent  to 
the  article  as  it  now  stands  in  the  treaty." 

In  order  to  settle  this  point  beyond  all  possible  doubt,  I  re- 
cently wrote  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  W.  A.  P.  Martin,  now  in  China, 
asking  him  to  give  me  his  recollection  of  the  incident.  He  re- 
plied as  follows  :  — 

"  The  charge  that  the  toleration  article  was  '  smuggled  into  the  treaty 
of  1858 '  is  so  far  from  the  truth  that  those  who  make  it  can  be  shown  to 
be  either  superficial  or  uncandid.  If  it  means  that  '  the  Chinese  did  not 
know  what  they  were  agreeing  to,  I  answer  that  they  could  have  no 
excuse  for  ignorance.  An  edict  granting  toleration  had  been  issued  as 
early  as  1845.  This  had  been  followed  by  more  than  ten  years  of  mis- 
sionary work  at  the  newly  opened  ports— quite  sufficient  to  make  them 
acquainted  with  the  character  of  Protestant  missions.  Of  Roman  Catholic 
missions  prior  to  the  edict,  they  had  centuries  of  experience.  Moreover, 
during  our  negotiations  at  Tientsin,  they  had  ample  time  for  a  fresh  study 
of  the  subject,  the  draft  of  our  treaty  being  under  daily  discussion  for  more 
than  a  week  before  it  was  signed.  Nor  was  our  draft  the  first  to  bring  up 
the  question  of  toleration.  The  Russian  Treaty  signed  on  June  13th  (five 
days  in  advance  of  ours)  contained  one  explicit  provision  for  the  tolera- 
tion of  Christianity  under  the  form  of  the  Greek  Church ;  but  it  made  no 
reference  to  Protestant  or  Roman  Catholic.  Not  only  was  the  American 
Treaty  the  first  to  give  these  a  legal  status,  it  gives  the  Chinese  a  sample 
of  Christian  teaching  in  the  Golden  Rule,  which  Dr.  Williams  inserted  in 
the  article  expressly  to  show  them  what  they  were  agreeing  to.  Never 
were  negotiations  more  open  and  above  board.  In  their  earlier  stages  I 
gave  a  copy  of  my  book  on  the  Evidences  of  Christianity  to  Jushon,  one  of 
the  deputies,  who  was  so  much  pleased  with  it,  that  he  became  my  friend 


170  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

and  greeted  me  warmly  on  my  removal  to  Peking.  That  the  Chinese 
Ministers  had  any  conception  of  the  new  force  they  were  admitting  into 
their  country,  I  do  not  assert ;  but  I  hold  strongly  that  this  spiritual  force 
is  the  only  thing  that  can  raise  the  Chinese  people  out  of  their  present 
state  of  semi-barbarism. 

"  W.  A.  P.  Martin. 
"  Wuchang,  China,  February  18,  igo4y 

It  was  not  until  1861,  that  legations  were  established  in 
Peking.  But  while  this  gave  foreign  nations  a  solid  foothold 
at  the  capital,  it  did  not  by  any  means  give  them  the  recogni- 
tion that  they  demanded,  for  their  intercourse  with  the  court 
was  still  hedged  about  with  innumerable  exactions  and  indigni- 
ties. The  Hon.  Thomas  Francis  Wade,  British  Minister  at 
Peking,  in  a  long  note  to  the  Chinese  Minister  Wen  Hsiang, 
dated  June  18,  187 1,  discussing  the  troubles  that  had  arisen 
between  the  Chinese  and  foreigners,  justly  said  : 

"  It  is  quite  impossible  that  China  should  ever  attain  to  a  just  apprecia- 
tion of  what  foreign  Powers  expect  of  her,  or  that  she  should  insure  from 
foreign  Powers  what  she  conceives  due  to  her,  until  she  have  honestly 
accepted  the  conditions  of  official  intercourse  which  are  the  sole  guaran- 
tees against  international  differences.  Thechiefof  these  is  an  interchange 
of  representatives.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is  a  panacea  for  all  evil ;  but  it  is 
incontestable  that  without  it  wars  would  be  of  far  more  frequent  recur- 
rence, and  till  China  is  represented  in  the  West,  I  see  no  hope  of  our  ever 
having  done  with  the  incessant  recriminations  and  bickerings  between  the 
Yamen  and  foreign  legations,  by  which  the  lives  of  diplomatic  agents  in 
Peking  are  made  weary.  If  China  is  wronged,  she  must  make  herself 
heard ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  if  she  would  abstain  from  giving  offense, 
she  must  learn  what  is  passing  in  the  world  beyond  her." 

The  Chinese  Government  was  slow  in  coming  to  this  view, 
but  western  nations  steadily  persisted.  One  by  one  new  con- 
cessions were  wrung  from  the  reluctant  Chinese.  Mr.  E.  H. 
Parker '  has  tabulated  as  follows  the  treaties  of  foreign  powers 
with  China  from  1689  to  1898  : — 

'"China,"  pp.  113-115. 


Diplomatic  Relations — Treaties 


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XV 

RENEWED  AGGRESSIONS 

NOT  content  with  innumerable  aggressions  and  ex- 
torted treaty  concessions,  Western  nations  boldly  dis- 
cussed the  dismemberment  of  China  as  certain  to 
come,  and  authors  and  journalists  disputed  as  to  which  country 
should  possess  the  richest  parts  of  the  Empire  whose  impotence 
to  defend  itself  was  taken  for  granted.  Chinese  ministers  in 
Europe  and  America  reported  these  discussions  to  their  supe- 
riors in  Peking.  The  English  papers  in  China  republished 
some  of  the  articles  and  added  many  effective  ones  of  their 
own,  so  that  speedily  all  the  better-informed  Chinese  came  to 
know  that  foreigners  regarded  China  as  "the  carcass  of  the 
East." 

Nor  was  all  this  talk  empty  boasting.  China  saw  that  France 
was  absorbing  Siam  and  had  designs  on  Syria ;  that  Britain  was 
already  lord  of  India  and  Egypt  and  the  Straits  Settlements ; 
that  Germany  was  pressing  her  claims  in  Asiatic  Turkey ;  that 
Russia  had  absorbed  Siberia  and  was  striving  to  obtain  control 
of  Palestine,  Persia  and  Korea ;  and  that  Italy  was  trying  to 
take  Abyssinia.  Moreover  the  Chinese  perceived  that  of  the 
numerous  islands  of  the  world,  France  had  the  Loyalty,  Society, 
Marquesas,  New  Hebrides  and  New  Caledonia  groups,  and 
claimed  the  Taumotu  or  Low  Archipelago;  that  Great  Britain 
had  the  Fiji,  Cook,  Gilbert,  EUice,  Phoenix,  Tokelan  and  New 
Zealand  groups,  with  northern  Borneo,  Tasmania,  and  the 
whole  of  continental  Australia,  besides  a  large  assortment  of 
miscellaneous  islands  scattered  over  the  world  wherever  they 
would  do  the  most  good  ;  that  Germany  possessed  the  Marshall 
group  and  Northeast  New  Guinea,  and  divided  with  England 

174. 


►7    O) 


^^ 

pq  a 

o 


Renewed  Aggressions  175 

the  Solomons;  that  Spain  had  the  Ladrones,  the  652  islands 
of  the  Carolines,  the  1,725  more  or  less  of  the  Philippines, 
beside  some  enormously  valuable  holdings  in  the  West  Indies ; 
that  the  Dutch  absolutely  ruled  Java,  Sumatra,  the  greater  part 
of  Borneo,  all  of  Celebes  and  the  hundreds  of  islands  eastward 
to  New  Guinea,  half  of  which  was  under  the  Dutch  flag ;  that 
the  new  world  power  on  the  American  continent  took  the 
Hawaiian  Islands  and  in  two  swift  campaigns  drove  Spain  out 
of  the  West  Indies  and  the  Philippines,  not  to  return  them  to 
their  inhabitants  but  to  keep  them  herself;  and  that  in  the 
Samoan  and  Friendly  Islands,  resident  foreigners  owned  about 
everything  worth  having  and  left  to  the  native  chiefs  only  what 
the  foreigners  did  not  want  or  could  not  agree  upon.  As  for 
mighty  Africa,  the  Berlin  Conference  of  1884  was  the  signal 
for  a  game  of  grab  on  so  colossal  a  scale  that  to-day  out  of 
Africa's  11,980,000  square  miles,  France  owns  3,074,000, 
Great  Britain  2,818,000,  Turkey  1,672,000,  Belgium  900,000, 
Portugal  834,000,  Germany  864,000,  Italy  596,000,  and  Spain 
263,000, — a  total  of  10,980,000,  or  ten-elevenths  of  the  whole 
continent,  and  doubtless  the  Powers  will  take  the  remaining 
eleventh  whenever  they  feel  like  it.  Well  does  the  Rev.  Dr. 
James  Stewart  call  this  "the  most  stupendous  and  unparalleled 
partition  of  the  earth's  surface  ever  known  in  the  world's 
history.  .  .  .  The  vast  area  was  partitioned,  annexed,  ap- 
propriated, or  converted  into  'spheres  of  influence,'  or  'spheres 
of  interest ' ;  whatever  may  be  the  exact  words  we  may  use, 
the  result  is  the  same.  Coast  lands  and  hinterlands  all  went 
in  this  great  appropriation,  and  mild  is  the  term  for  the  deed."  ^ 

"Gobbling  the  globe,"  this  process  has  been  forcefully  if 
inelegantly  termed.  No  wonder  that  the  white  race  has  been 
bitterly  described  as  "  the  most  arrogant  and  rapacious,  the 
most  exclusive  and  intolerant  race  in  history." 

We  can  understand,  therefore,  the  alarm  of  the  Chinese  as 
they  saw  the  greedy  foreigners  descend  upon  their  own  shores 
>"Dawn  in  the  Dark  Continent,"  pp.  17,  18. 


176  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

in  such  ways  as  to  justify  the  fear  that  what  remained  of  the 
Celestial  Empire,  too,  would  be  speedily  reduced  to  vassalage. 
Germany,  which  was  among  the  last  of  the  European  powers 
to  obtain  a  foothold  in  China,  but  which  had  been  growing 
more  and  more  uneasy  as  she  saw  the  acquisitions  of  her  rivals, 
suddenly  found  her  opportunity  in  the  murder  of  two  German 
Roman  Catholic  priests  in  the  province  of  Shantung,  December 
1897,  and  on  the  14th  of  that  month  Admiral  Diedrich  landed 
marines  at  Kiao-chou  Bay.  At  that  time  nothing  but  a  few 
straggling,  poverty-stricken  Chinese  villages  were  to  be  seen  at 
the  foot  of  the  barren  hills  bordering  the  bay.  But  the  keen 
eye  of  Germany  had  detected  the  possibilities  of  the  place  and 
early  in  the  following  year,  under  the  forms  of  an  enforced 
ninety-nine  year  lease,  Germany  took  this  splendid  harbour 
and  the  territory  bordering  it,  and  at  Tsing-tau  began  to  push 
her  interests  so  aggressively  that  the  whole  province  of  Shan- 
tung was  thrown  into  the  most  intense  excitement  and  alarm. 

Knowing  how  recently  the  city  had  been  founded,  I  looked 
upon  it  with  wonder.  It  was  only  three  years  and  a  half  since 
the  Germans  had  taken  possession,  but  no  boom  city  in  the 
United  States  ever  made  more  rapid  progress  in  so  short  a 
period.  Not  a  Chinese  house  could  be  seen,  except  a  village 
in  the  distance.  But  along  the  shores  rose  a  city  of  modern 
buildings  Avith  banks,  department  stores,  public  buildings,  com- 
fortable residences,  a  large  church  and  imposing  marine  bar- 
racks. Landing,  I  found  broad  streets,  some  of  them  already 
well  paved  and  others  being  paved  by  removing  the  dirt  to  a 
depth  of  twelve  inches  and  then  filling  the  excavation  solid 
with  broken  rock.  The  gutters  were  wide  and  of  stone,  the 
sewers  deep  and,  in  some  cases,  cut  through  the  solid  rock. 

The  city  was  under  naval  control,  the  German  Governor 
being  a  naval  officer.  Several  war-ships  were  lying  in  the  har- 
bour. A  large  force  of  marines  was  on  shore,  and  the  hills 
commanding  the  city  and  harbour  were  bristling  with  cannon. 
The  Germans  were  spending  money  without  stint.     No  less 


Renewed  Aggressions  177 

than  11,000,000  marks  were  being  expended  that  year  for 
streets,  sewers,  water  and  electric  light  works,  barracks,  fortifi- 
cations, wharves,  a  handsome  hotel  and  public  buildings,  while 
the  Government  had  appropriated  50,000,000  Mex.  (5,000,- 
000  a  year  for  ten  years)  for  deepening  and  enlarging  the  inner 
harbour.  But  in  addition  to  these  Government  expenditures, 
many  enterprising  business  men  were  undertaking  large  enter- 
prises on  their  own  account.  It  was  apparent  to  the  most 
casual  observer  that  Germany  had  entered  Shantung  to  stay 
and  that  she  considered  the  whole  vast  province  of  Shantung 
as  her  sphere  of  influence.  The  railway,  already  referred  to 
in  a  former  chapter,  was  being  constructed  into  the  interior 
with  solid  road-bed,  steel  ties  and  substantial  stone  stations. 
German  mining  engineers  were  prospecting  for  minerals  and 
everything  indicated  large  plans  for  a  permanent  occupation. 

The  site  of  Tsing-tau  is  beautiful  and  exceptionally  healthful. 
While  the  ports  of  Teng-chou  and  Chefoo  are  also  in  Shan- 
tung, the  first  is  now  of  little  importance,  for  it  is  on  the  north- 
eastern part  of  the  promontory  with  a  mountain  range  behind 
it  so  that  it  is  difficult  of  access  from  the  interior.  Chefoo, 
which  was  not  opened  as  a  port  until  later,  rapidly  superseded 
Teng-chou  in  importance  and  continues  to  grow  with  great 
rapidity.  But  it  is  plain  that  the  Germans  intend  to  make 
Tsing-tau,  only  twenty  hours  distant  by  steamer,  the  chief  port 
of  Shantung,  and  as  they  have  the  railroad,  they  will  doubtless 
succeed. 

From  hundreds  of  outlying  villages,  the  Chinese  are  flocking 
into  Tsing-tau,  attracted  by  the  remunerative  employment 
which  the  Germans  offer,  for  of  course,  tens  of  thousands  of 
labourers  are  necessary  to  carry  out  the  extensive  improvements 
that  are  planned.  The  thrifty  Chinese  are  quite  willing  to 
take  the  foreigner's  money,  however  much  they  may  dislike 
him.  Since  the  white  man  is  here,  we  might  as  well  get  what 
we  can  out  of  him,  the  Celestials  philosophically  argue.  And 
so  the  Germans,  who  had  ruthlessly  destroyed  the  old,  unsani- 


ijS  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

tary  Chinese  villages  which  they  had  found  on  their  arrival, 
laid  out  model  Chinese  villages  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city. 
The  new  Chinese  city  is  about  two  and  a  half  miles  from  the 
foreign  city  and  is  connected  with  it  by  a  splendid  macad- 
amized road  for  which  the  Germans  filled  ravines,  cut  through 
the  solid  rock  of  the  hillsides  and  made  retaining  walls  and 
culverts  of  solid  masonry.  Some  of  the  old  stone  houses  were 
allowed  to  remain,  but  many  of  the  poorer  houses  were  demol- 
ished, streets  were  straightened  and  the  whole  city  placed  under 
strict  sanitary  supervision.  The  Chinese  as  they  came  in  were 
told  where  and  how  their  houses  must  be  erected  on  the  regu- 
larly laid  out  streets.  The  houses  are  numbered  and  many 
of  the  stores  have  signs  in  both  German  and  Chinese.  At  the 
time  of  my  visit,  the  Chinese  city  had  a  population  of  8,000, 
the  streets  were  crowded,  and  marketing,  picture  and  theatrical 
exhibitions  and  all  the  forms  of  life,  so  common  in  Chinese 
cities,  were  to  be  seen  on  every  side.  Since  then,  the  popula- 
tion has  greatly  increased,  while  another  Chinese  city  has  been 
laid  out  on  the  open  ground  on  the  other  side  of  the  foreign 
city.  There  is  every  indication  that  Tsing-tau  is  to  become 
one  of  the  great  port  cities  of  China,  and  the  opportunities  for 
trade,  the  coming  of  steamships  and  the  construction  of  the 
railway  are  making  it  an  attractive  place  to  multitudes  of 
ambitious  Chinese. 

The  German  Government  owns  all  the  land  in  and  about 
Tsing-tau,  and  will  not  sell  save  on  condition  that  approved 
buildings  are  erected  within  three  years.  The  single  tax 
plan  has  been  adopted,  that  is,  there  is  no  tax  on  buildings 
but  there  is  a  six  per  cent,  tax  on  all  land  that  is  sold.  This 
shuts  out  the  land  speculator  who  has  injured  so  many  Ameri- 
can cities.  No  man  can  buy  cheap  land  and  let  it  lie  idle  while 
it  rises  in  value  as  the  result  of  his  neighbour's  improvements  and 
the  growth  of  the  community.  The  German  Government  will 
do  its  own  speculating  and  reap  for  itself  the  increment  of  its 
costly  and  elaborate  improvements.     It  is  making  a  noble  city. 


Renewed  Aggressions  179 

Streets,  sewers,  buildings,  docks,  sea  walls,  harbour-dredging, 
tree  planting — all  point  to  great  and  far-reaching  plans,  while 
under  pretext  of  guarding  the  railroad,  troops  are  being  gradu- 
ally pushed  into  the  interior.  The  Kaomi  garrison,  in  the  hinter- 
land eighteen  miles  beyond  the  Kiao-chou  city  line  and  sixty- 
four  from  Tsing-tau,  consisted  of  100  men  when  I  was  there 
in  the  spring  of  1901.  A  few  months  later  it  was  1,000. 
Plainly  the  Germans  are  moving  in. 

The  ease  and  dispatch  with  which  Germany  succeeded  in 
obtaining  an  enormously  valuable  strategic  point  in  the  rich 
province  of  Shangtung  aroused  the  cupidity  of  rival  nations, 
and  they  threw  off  all  pretense  to  decency  in  their  scramble  for 
further  territories.  Russian  statesmen  had  long  ago  seen  that 
the  Pacific  Ocean  was  to  be  the  arena  of  world  events  of  colos- 
sal significance  to  the  race.  We  have  noted  in  a  former  chap- 
ter how  she  had  already  extended  her  territory  till  she  touched 
the  Pacific  Ocean  on  the  far  north  and  how,  partly  that  she 
might  develop  it,  but  primarily  that  she  might  have  a  highway 
through  it  to  the  great  ocean  which  lies  beyond,  she  had  begun 
the  construction  of  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway,  the  late  Czar, 
Alexander  III,  guaranteeing  out  of  his  own  private  funds 
350,000,000  rubles  towards  the  necessary  expense.  The  most 
southern  port  of  Russia  on  the  Pacific  Ocean  was  Vladivostok, 
which  was  therefore  made  the  terminus  of  the  line  and  rapidly 
and  strongly  fortified.  But  Russia  was  not  content  with  a 
harbour  which  is  closed  by  ice  six  months  in  the  year.  She 
therefore  began  to  press  her  way  southward  through  Manchuria. 
In  November,  1894,  Japan  had  wrested  from  China  the  penin- 
sula terminating  in  Port  Arthur,  and  the  treaty  of  Shimonoseki, 
at  the  close  of  the  war,  had  given  Japan  the  Liao-tung  penin- 
sula, opened  four  Manchurian  ports  to  foreign  trade,  and  con- 
ceded to  Japan  valuable  commercial  rights  in  Manchuria, 
rights  which  gave  the  Japanese  virtual  ascendancy.  Ostensibly 
in  the  interests  of  China,  but  really  of  her  own  ambition, 
Russia  gravely  said  that  it  would  never  do  to  permit  Japan  to 


l8o  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

remain  in  Manchuria,  virtuously  declaring  that  "the  integrity 
of  China  must  be  preserved  at  all  costs."  She  persuaded 
France  and  Germany  to  join  her  in  notifying  the  Japanese 
Government  that  "it  would  not  be  permitted  to  retain  perma- 
nent possession  of  any  portion  of  the  mainland  of  Asia." 
Japan,  feeling  at  that  time  unprepared  to  fight  three  European 
powers,  was  forced  to  relinquish  the  prize  of  victory.  The 
solicitude  of  Russia  for  the  integrity  of  helpless  China  was 
quite  touching,  but  it  did  not  prevent  her  from  making  one  en- 
croachment after  another  upon  the  coveted  territory  until 
March  8,  1898,  to  the  rage  and  chagrin  of  Japan,  she  peremp- 
torily demanded  for  herself  and  March  27th  of  the  same  year 
obtained  Port  Arthur  including  Ta-lien-wan  and  800  square 
miles  of  adjoining  territory.  She  speciously  declared  that 
**  her  occupation  of  Port  Arthur  was  merely  temporary  and 
only  to  secure  a  harbour  for  wintering  the  Russian  fleet."  But 
grim  significance  was  given  to  her  action  by  the  prompt  ap- 
pearance at  Port  Arthur  of  20,000  Russian  soldiers  and  90,000 
coolies  who  were  set  to  work  developing  a  great  modern  fortifi- 
cation almost  under  the  eyes  of  the  Chinese  capital. 

As  it  was  expedient,  however,  to  have  a  commercial  city  on 
the  peninsula  as  well  as  a  fortification,  as  the  harbour  of  Port 
Arthur  was  not  large  enough  for  both  naval  and  commercial 
purposes,  and  as  the  Russians  did  not  wish  anyway  to  make 
their  fortified  base  accessible  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  they  de- 
cided to  build  a  city  forty-five  miles  north  of  Port  Arthur  and 
call  it  Dalny,  which  quite  appropriately  means  "far  away." 
Most  cities  grow,  but  this  was  too  slow  a  method  for  the 
purpose  of  the  Slav,  and  therefore,  a  metropolis  was  forthwith 
made  to  order  as  a  result  of  an  edict  issued  by  the  Czar, 
July  30,  1899. 

The  harbour  of  Dalny  is  an  exceptionally  fine  one  with  over 
thirty  feet  of  water  at  low  tide  so  that  the  largest  vessels  can 
lie  alongside  the  docks  and  transfer  their  cargoes  directly  to 
trains  for  Europe.     Great  piers  were  constructed;  enormous 


Renewed  Aggressions  i8i 

warehouses  and  elevators  erected  ;  gas,  electric  light,  water  and 
street- car  plants  installed  ;  wide  and  well -sewered  streets  laid 
out ;  and  a  thoroughly  modern  and  handsome  city  planned  in 
four  sections,  the  first  of  which  was  administrative,  the  second 
mercantile,  the  third  residence,  and  the  fourth  Chinese.  The 
Russians  were  sparing  neither  labour  nor  expense  in  the  con- 
struction of  this  ambitious  city  which,  by  January,  1904,  al- 
ready had  a  population  of  over  50,000,  and  represented  a  re- 
ported expenditure  of  about  $150,000,000.  April  9,  1902, 
Russia  solemnly  promised  to  evacuate  Manchuria  October  8, 
1903.  But  when  that  day  came,  she  remained,  as  every  one 
knew  that  she  would,  under  the  unblushing  pretext  that  Man- 
churia was  not  yet  sufficiently  pacified  to  justify  her  with- 
drawal from  a  region  where  her  interests  were  so  great.  As 
Manchuria  was  at  the  time  as  quiet  as  some  of  Russia's 
European  provinces,  the  reason  alleged  reminds  one  of  the 
Arab's  reply  to  a  man  who  wished  to  borrow  his  rope — "I 
need  it  myself  to  tie  up  some  sand  with."  "But,"  expostu- 
lated the  would-be  borrower,  "that  is  a  poor  excuse  for  you 
cannot  tie  up  sand  with  a  rope."  "I  know  that,"  was  the 
calm  rejoinder,  "but  any  excuse  will  serve  when  I  don't  want 
to  do  a  thing."  So  to  the  concern  of  China,  the  envy  of 
Europe  and  the  wrath  of  Japan,  Manchuria  practically  became 
a  Russian  province  until  Japan,  unable  to  restrain  her  exasper- 
ation longer  and  feeling  that  Russia's  plans  were  a  menace  to 
her  own  safety,  had  developed  her  army  and  navy  and  begun 
the  war  which  is  being  fiercely  waged  as  this  chapter  goes  to 
press. 

Not  to  be  outdone  by  Germany  and  Russia,  other  nations 
made  haste  to  seize  what  they  could  find.  April  2,  1898, 
England  secured  the  lease  of  Lin-kung,  with  all  the  islands 
and  a  strip  ten  miles  wide  on  the  mainland,  thus  giving  the 
British  a  strong  post  at  Wei-hai  Wei.  April  2  2d,  France  per- 
emptorily demanded,  and  May  2d  obtained,  the  bay  of  Kwang- 
chou-wan,   while   Japan   found  her  share  in  a  concession  for 


l82  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Foochow,  Wu-sung,  Fan-ning,  Yo-chou  and  Chung-wan-tao. 
By  1899,  in  all  China's  3,000  miles  of  coast  line,  there  was  not 
a  ha?rbour  in  which  she  could  mobilize  her  own  ships  without 
the  consent  of  the  hated  foreigner. 

A  clever  Chinese  artist  in  Hongkong  grimly  drew  a  car- 
toon of  the  situation  of  his  country  as  he  and  his  countrymen 
saw  it.  The  Russian  Bear,  coming  down  from  the  north, 
his  feet  planted  in  Manchuria  and  northern  Korea,  sees 
the  British  Bulldog  seated  in  southern  China,  while  "  The 
Sun  Elf"  (Japan),  sitting  upon  its  Island  Kingdom, 
proclaims  that  "John  Bull  and  I  will  watch  the  Bear." 
The  German  Sausage  around  Kiau-chou  makes  no  sign  of  life, 
but  the  French  Frog,  jumping  about  in  Tonquin  and  Annam 
and  branded  "  Fashoda  and  Colonial  Expansion,"  tries  to 
stretch  a  friendly  hand  to  the  Bear  over  the  Bulldog's  head. 
Then,  to  offset  this  proffered  assistance  to  the  Bear,  the  Chinese 
artist,  with  characteristic  cunning,  brings  in  the  New  World 
power.  He  places  the  American  Eagle  over  the  Philippines, 
its  beak  extended  towards  the  Bulldog,  and  writes  upon  it  the 
phrase,  "  Blood  is  thicker  than  water."  ^ 

As  far  as  Americans  have  any  sympathy  at  all  with  European 
schemes  for  conquest  in  China,  they  naturally  look  with  more 
favour  on  England  and  Germany  than  on  France  and  Rus- 
sia. The  reason  is  apparent.  England  establishes  honest  and 
beneficent  government  wherever  she  goes  and  makes  its  ad- 
vantages freely  accessible  to  the  citizens  of  other  nations,  so 
that  an  American  is  not  only  as  safe  but  as  unrestricted  in  all 
his  legitimate  activities  as  he  would  be  in  his  own  land. 
Germany,  too,  while  not  so  hospitable  as  England,  is  neverthe- 
less a  Teutonic,  Protestant  power  under  whose  ascendancy  in 
Shantung  our  missionaries  find  ample  freedom.  But  France 
and  Russia  are  more  narrowly  and  jealously  national  in  their 
aims.  Their  possessions  are  openly  regarded  as  assets  to  be 
managed  for  their  own  interests  rather  than  for  those  of  the  na- 

1  Reproduced  in  the  Newark,  N.  J.,  Evenmg  News,  January  9,  1904. 


Renewed  Aggressions  183 

tives  or  of  the  world.  The  colonial  attitude  of  the  former  to- 
wards all  Protestant  missionary  work  is  dictated  by  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  and  is  therefore  hostile  to  Protestants,  while 
the  Russian  Greek  Church  tolerates  no  other  form  of  religion 
that  it  can  repress.  A  recent  traveller  reports  that  Russia  has 
put  every  possible  obstruction  in  the  way  of  reopening  the  mis- 
sion stations  that  were  abandoned  during  the  Boxer  outbreak. 
She  has  already  put  Manchuria  under  the  Greek  archimandrite 
of  Peking,  and  has  sought  to  limit  all  Christian  teaching  to  the 
members  of  the  Orthodox  Greek  Church.  It  is  significant  that 
Russia  is  strenuously  opposing,  under  a  variety  of  pretexts,  the 
"open  door"  which  Secretary  Hay  obtained  from  China  in 
Manchuria,  while  there  is  ground  for  suspecting  that  Russian 
influence  in  Constantinople  is  preventing,  or  at  least  delaying 
as  long  as  possible,  that  legal  recognition  of  American  rights 
in  Turkey  which  the  Sultan  has  already  granted  to  several 
other  nations.  As  for  Russian  ascendancy  in  Manchuria, 
everybody  knows  that  it  is  inimical  to  the  interests  of  other 
countries  and  that  there  will  be  little  freedom  of  trade  if  Russia 
can  prevent  it. 


I 


XVI 

GROWING    IRRITATION   OF    THE   CHINESE— THE 

REFORM  PARTY 

THE  effect  of  the  operation  of  these  comrnercial  and 
political  forces  upon  a  conservative  and  exclusive 
people  was  of  course  to  exasperate  to  a  high  degree. 
A  proud  people  were  wounded  in  their  most  sensitive  place  by 
the  ruthless  and  arrogant  way  in  which  foreigners  broke  down 
their  cherished  wall  of  separation  from  the  rest  of  the  world  and 
trampled  upon  their  highly-prized  customs  and  institutions. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  history  of  the  dealings  of  the 
Christian  powers  with  China  is  not  altogether  pleasant  reading. 
The  provocation  was  indeed  great,  but  the  retaliation  was 
heavy.  And  all  the  time  foreign  nations  refused  to  grant  to  the 
Chinese  the  privileges  which  they  forced  them  to  grant  to  others. 
We  sometimes  imagine  that  the  Golden  Rule  is  peculiar  to 
Christianity.  It  is  indeed  in  its  highest  form,  but  its  spirit 
was  recognized  by  Confucius  five  centuries  before  Christ.  His 
expression  of  it  was  negative,  but  it  gave  the  Chinese  some 
idea  of  the  principle.  They  were  not,  therefore,  pleasantly  im- 
pressed when  they  found  the  alleged  Christian  nations  violating 
that  principle.  Even  Christian  America  has  not  been  an  ex- 
ception. We  have  Chinese  exclusion  laws,  but  we  will  not 
allow  China  to  exclude  Americans.  We  sail  our  gunboats  up 
her  rivers,  but  we  would  not  allow  China  to  sail  gunboats  into 
ours.  If  a  Chinese  commits  a  crime  in  America,  he  is  amenable 
to  American  law  as  interpreted  by  an  American  court.  But  if 
an  American  commits  a  crime  in  China,  he  can  be  tried  only 
by  his  consul ;  not  a  Chinese  court  in  the  Empire  has  jurisdic- 
tion over  him,  and  the  people  naturally  infer  from  this  that 

184 


Growing  Irritation  of  the  Chinese         185 

we  have   no   confidence   in  their  sense  of  justice  or  in  their 
administration  of  it. 

This  law  of  extra-territoriahty  is  one  of  the  chief  sources  of 
irritation  against  foreigners,  for  it  not  only  implies  contempt, 
but  it  makes  foreigners  a  privileged  class.  Said  Minister  Wen 
Hsiang  in  1868: — "Take  away  your  extra-territorial  clause, 
and  merchant  and  missionary  may  settle  anywhere  and  every- 
where. But  retain  it,  and  we  must  do  our  best  to  confine  you 
and  our  trouble  to  the  treaty  ports."  But  unfortunately  this 
is  a  cause  of  resentment  that  Western  nations  cannot  prudently 
remove  in  the  near  future.  While  we  can  understand  the  re- 
sentment of  the  Chinese  magistrates  as  they  see  their  methods 
discredited  by  the  foreigner,  it  would  not  do  to  subject  Euro- 
peans and  Americans  to  Chinese  legal  procedure.  The  lan- 
guage of  Mr.  Wade,  the  British  Minister,  to  Minister  Wen 
Hsiang  in  June,  1871,  is  still  applicable: — 

"  Experience  has  shown  that,  in  many  cases,  the  latter  (law  of  China) 
will  condemn  a  prisoner  to  death,  where  the  law  of  England  would  be 
satisfied  by  a  penalty  far  less  severe,  if  indeed,  it  were  possible  to  punish 
the  man  at  all.  It  is  to  be  deplored  that  misunderstandings  should  arise 
from  a  difference  in  our  codes ;  but  I  see  no  remedy  for  this  until  China 
shall  see  fit  to  revise  the  process  of  investigation  now  common  in  her 
courts.  So  long  as  evidence  is  wrung  from  witnesses  by  torture,  it  is 
scarcely  possible  for  the  authorities  of  a  foreign  power  to  associate 
themselves  with  those  of  China  in  the  trial  of  a  criminal  case  ;  and  unless  the 
authorities  of  both  nationalities  are  present,  there  will  always  be  a  sus- 
picion of  unfairness  on  one  side  or  the  other.  This  difficulty  surmounted, 
there  would  be  none  in  the  way  of  providing  a  code  of  laws  to  affect 
mixed  cases  ;  none,  certainly,  on  the  part  of  England  ;  none,  in  my  be- 
lief, either,  on  the  part  of  any  other  Power."  i 

Meantime,  as  the  Hon.  Frederick  F.  Low,  United  States 
Minister  at  Peking,  wrote  to  the  State  Department  at  Wash- 

'  Correspondence  Respecting  the  Circular  of  the  Chinese  Government 
of  February  9,  187 1,  Relating  to  Missionaries.  Presented  to  both 
Houses  of  Parliament  by  command  of  Her  Majesty,  1872. 


i86  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

ington,  March  20,  1871  : — "The  dictates  of  humanity  will 
not  permit  the  renunciation  of  the  right  for  all  foreigners  that 
they  shall  be  governed  and  punished  by  their  own  laws." 

But  the  Chinese  do  not  see  the  question  in  that  light.  Their 
methods  of  legal  procedure  are  sanctioned  in  their  eyes  by  im- 
memorial custom  and  they  fail  to  understand  why  forms  that, 
in  their  judgment,  are  good  enough  for  Chinese  are  not  also  good 
enough  for  despised  foreigners.  When  we  take  into  considera- 
tion the  further  fact  that  the  typical  white  man,  the  world 
over,  acts  as  if  he  were  a  lord  of  creation,  and  treats  Asiatics 
with  more  or  less  condescension  as  if  they  were  his  inferiors,  we 
can  understand  the  very  natural  resentment  of  the  Chinese, 
who  have  just  as  much  pride  of  race  as  we  have,  and  who  in- 
deed consider  themselves  the  most  highly  civilized  people  in 
the  world.  The  fact  that  foreign  nations  are  able  to  thrash 
them  does  not  convince  them  that  those  nations  are  superior, 
any  more  than  a  gentleman's  physical  defeat  by  a  pugilist  would 
satisfy  him  that  the  pugilist  is  a  better  man.  It  is  not  without 
significance  that  the  white  man  is  generally  designated  in  China 
as  "  the  foreign  devil." 

The  natural  resentment  of  the  Chinese  in  such  circumstances 
was  intensified  by  the  conduct  of  the  foreign  soldiery.  Army 
life  is  not  a  school  of  virtue  anywhere,  particularly  in  Asia  where 
a  comparatively  defenseless  people  open  wide  opportunities  for 
evil  practices  and  where  Asiatic  methods  of  opposition  in- 
furiate men.  In  almost  every  place  where  the  soldiers  of 
Europe  landed,  they  pillaged  and  burned  and  raped  and 
slaughtered  like  incarnate  fiends.  Chefoo  to-day  is  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  effect.  It  is  a  city  where  foreigners  have  resided 
for  forty  years,  where  there  are  consuls  of  all  nations  and  ex- 
tensive business  relations  with  other  ports,  where  foreign 
steamers  regularly  touch  and  where  war-ships  frequently  lie. 
There  were  five  formidable  cruisers  there  during  my  visit. 
Surely  the  Chinese  of  Chefoo  should  understand  the  situation. 
But  during  the  troubles  of  i860,  French  troops  were  quartered 


Growing  Irritation  of  the  Chinese         187 

there  and  their  conduct  was  so  atrociously  brutal  and  lustful 
that  Chefoo  has  ever  since  been  bitterly  anti-foreign.  The 
Presbyterian  missionaries  have  repeatedly  tried  to  do  Christian 
work  in  the  old  walled  city,  but  have  never  succeeded  in  gain- 
ing a  foothold,  and  all  their  local  missionary  work  is  confined 
to  the  numerous  population  which  has  come  from  other  parts  of 
the  province  and  settled  around  Chefoo  proper.  Nothing  but 
battleships  in  the  harbour  kept  that  old  city  from  attacking 
foreigners  during  the  Boxer  outbreak.  Even  to-day  the  cry 
"kill,  kill"  is  sometimes  raised  as  a  foreigner  walks  through 
the  streets,  and  inflammatory  placards  are  often  posted  on  the 
walls. 

With  the  record  of  foreign  aggressions  in  China  before  us, 
can  we  wonder  that  the  Chinese  became  restive  ?  The  New 
York  Sun  truly  says:  "It  was  while  Chinese  territory  was 
thus  virtually  being  given  away  that  the  people  became  uneasy 
and  riots  were  started  ;  the  people  felt  that  their  land  had  been 
despoiled."     The  Hon.  Chester  Holcombe  truly  remarks  : — 

"  Those  who  desire  to  know  more  particularly  what  the  Chinese 
think  about  it,  how  they  regard  the  proposed  dismemberment  of  the 
Empire  and  the  extinction  of  their  national  life,  are  referred  to  the 
Boxer  movement  as  furnishing  a  practical  exposition  of  their  views.  It 
contained  the  concentrated  wrath  and  hate  of  sixty  years'  slow  growth. 
And  it  had  the  hearty  sympathy  of  many,  many  millions  of  Chinese,  who 
took  no  active  part  in  it.  For,  beyond  a  doubt,  it  represented  to  them  a 
patriotic  effort  to  save  their  country  from  foreign  aggression  and  ultimate 
destruction.  .  .  ,  The  European  Powers  have  only  themselves  to 
thank  for  the  bitter  hatred  of  the  Chinese  and  the  crash  in  which  it  cul- 
minated. Governmental  policies  outrageous  and  beyond  excuse, 
scandalous  diplomacy,  and  unprovoked  attacks  upon  the  rights  and 
possessions  of  China,  have  been  at  the  root  of  all  the  trouble."  • 

And  shall  we  pretend  innocent  surprise  that  the  irritation  of 
the  Chinese  rapidly  grew  ?  Suppose  that  after  the  murder  of 
the    Chinese    in    Rock   Springs,    Wyoming,    a   Chinese   fleet 

•  Article  in  The  Outlook,  February  13,  1904. 


l88  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

had  been  able  to  seize  New  York  and  Boston  Harbours,  and 
suppose  our  Government  had  been  weak  enough  to  ac- 
quiesce. Would  the  American  people  have  made  any  protest  ? 
Would  the  lives  of  Chinese  have  been  safe  on  our  streets  ?  And 
was  it  an  entirely  base  impulse  that  led  the  men  of  China  vio- 
lently to  oppose  the  forcible  seizure  of  their  country  by  aliens  ? 
The  Empress  Dowager  declared  in  her  now  famous  edict : — 

"  The  various  Powers  cast  upon  us  looks  of  tiger-like  voracity,  hustling 
each  other  in  their  endeavours  to  be  first  to  seize  upon  our  innermost  ter- 
ritories. They  think  that  China,  having  neither  money  nor  troops,  would 
never  venture  to  go  to  war  with  them.  They  fail  to  understand,  however, 
that  there  are  certain  things  which  this  Empire  can  never  consent  to,  and 
that,  if  hard  pressed,  we  have  no  alternative  but  to  rely  upon  the  justice 
of  our  cause,  the  knowledge  of  which  in  our  breasts  strengthens  our  re- 
solves and  steels  us  to  present  a  united  front  against  our  aggressors." 

That  would  probably  be  called  patriotic  if  it  had  emanated 
from  the  ruler  of  any  other  people. 

When  with  Russia  in  Manchuria,  Germany  in  Shantung, 
England  in  the  valleys  of  the  Yang-tze  and  the  Pearl,  France 
in  Tonquin  and  Japan  in  Formosa,  the  whole  Empire  appeared 
to  be  in  imminent  danger  of  absorption,  the  United  States  again 
showed  itself  the  friend  of  China  by  trying  to  stem  the  tide. 
Our  great  Secretary  of  State,  John  Hay,  sent  to  the  European 
capitals  that  famous  note  of  September,  1899,  which  none  of 
them  wanted  to  answer  but  which  none  of  them  dared  to  re- 
fuse, inviting  them  to  join  the  United  States  in  assuring  the 
apprehensive  Chinese  that  the  Governments  of  Europe  and 
America  had  no  designs  upon  China's  territorial  integrity,  but 
simply  desired  an  "open  door"  for  commerce,  and  that  any 
claims  by  one  nation  of  "sphere  of  influence"  would  "in  no 
way  interfere  with  any  treaty  port  or  any  vested  interest" 
within  that  sphere,  but  that  all  nations  should  continue  to  enjoy 
equality  of  treatment.  In  response,  the  Russian  Government, 
December  30,  1899,  through  Count  Mouravieff,  suavely  de- 
clared : — 


Growing  Irritation  of  the  Chinese         189 

"  The  Imperial  Government  has  already  demonstrated  its  firm  intention 
to  follow  the  policy  of  the  '  open  door.'  ...  As  to  the  ports  now 
opened  or  hereafter  to  be  opened  to  foreign  commerce  by  the  Chinese 
Government,  .  .  .  the  Imperial  Government  has  no  intention  what- 
ever of  claiming  any  privileges  for  its  own  subjects  to  the  exclusion  of 
other  foreigners." 

The  other  Powers  also  assented.  But  it  was  all  in  vain. 
Matters  had  already  gone  too  far,  and,  beside,  the  Chinese 
knew  well  enough  that  the  Powers  were  not  to  be  trusted  be- 
yond the  limits  of  self-interest. 

Some  of  the  Chinese,  it  is  true,  had  the  intelligence  to  see 
that  changes  were  inevitable,  and  the  result  was  the  develop- 
ment of  a  Reform  Party  among  the  Chinese  themselves.  It 
was  not  large,  but  it  included  some  influential  men,  though, 
unfortunately,  their  zeal  was  not  always  tempered  by  discretion. 
The  war  with  Japan  powerfully  aided  them.  True,  many  of 
the  Chinese  do  not  yet  know  that  there  was  such  a  war,  for 
news  travels  slowly  in  a  land  whose  railway  and  telegraph  lines, 
newspapers  and  post-offices  are  yet  few,  and  whose  average 
inhabitant  has  never  been  twenty  miles  from  the  village  in  which 
he  was  born.  But  some  who  did  know  realized  that  Japan  had 
won  by  the  aid  of  Western  methods.  An  eagerness  to  acquire 
those  methods  resulted.  Missionaries  were  besieged  by  Chinese 
who  wished  to  learn  English.  Modern  books  were  given  a 
wide  circulation.  Several  of  the  influential  advisers  of  the 
Emperor  became  students  of  Occidental  science  and  political 
economy.  In  five  years,  1 893-1 898,  the  book  sales  of  one 
society — that  for  the  Difi'usion  of  Christian  and  General  Knowl- 
edge Among  the  Chinese — leaped  from  ^817  to  ^18,457,  while 
every  mission  press  was  run  to  its  utmost  capacity  to  supply  the 
new  demands. 

A  powerful  exponent  of  the  new  ideas  appeared  in  the  great 
Viceroy,  Chang  Chih-tung.  He  wrote  a  book,  entitled 
"China's  Only  Hope,"  exposing  the  causes  of  China's  weak- 
ness and  advocating  radical  reforms.     The  book  was  printed 


IQO  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

by  the  Tsung-li  Yamen,  and  by  royal  command  copies  were 
sent  to  the  high  ofificials  of  the  Empire.  Big  yellow  posters  ad- 
vertised it  from  the  walls  of  leading  cities,  and  in  a  short  time 
a  million  copies  were  sold.  It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say 
that  "this  book  made  more  history  in  a  shorter  time  than  any 
other  modern  piece  of  literature,  that  it  astonished  a  kingdom, 
convulsed  an  Empire  and  brought  on  a  war." 

The  Reform  Party  urged  the  young  Emperor  to  use  the  im- 
perial power  for  the  advancement  of  his  people.  He  yielded  to 
the  pressure  and  became  an  eager  and  diligent  student  of  the 
Western  learning  and  methods.  In  the  opening  months  of  the 
year  1898,  he  bought  no  less  than  129  foreign  books,  including 
a  Bible  and  several  scientific  works,  besides  maps,  globes,  and 
wind  and  current  charts.  Nor  did  he  stop  with  this,  but  with 
the  ardour  of  a  new  convert  issued  the  now  famous  reform 
edicts,  which,  if  they  could  have  been  carried  into  effect,  would 
have  revolutionized  China  and  started  her  on  the  high  road  to 
national  greatness.  These  memorable  decrees  have  been  sum- 
marized as  follows : 


1.  Establishing  a  university  at  Peking. 

2.  Sending  imperial  clansmen  to  study  European  and  American  Gov- 
ernments. 

3.  Encouraging  art,  science  and  modern  agriculture. 

4.  Expressing  the  willingness  of  the  Emperor  to  hear  the  objections 
of  the  conservatives  to  progress  and  reform. 

5.  Abolishing  the  literary  essay  as  a  prominent  part  of  the  Govern- 
ment examinations. 

6.  Censuring  those  who  attempted  to  delay  the  establishment  of  the 
Peking  Imperial  University. 

7.  Directing  that  the  construction  of  the  Lu  Han  railway  be  carried 
on  with  more  vigour. 

8.  Advising  the  adoption  of  Western  arms  and  drill  for  all  the  Tartar 
troops. 

9.  Ordering  the  establishment  of  agricultural  schools  in  the  provinces 
to  teach  improved  methods  of  agriculture. 

10.  Ordering  the  introduction  of  patent  and  copyright  laws. 


Growing  Irritation  of  the  Chinese         191 

11.  Ordering  the  Board  of  War  and  the  Foreign  Office  to  report  on 
the  reform  of  the  military  examinations. 

12.  Offering  special  rewards  to  inventors  and  authors. 

13.  Ordering  officials  to  encourage  trade  and  assist  merchants. 

14.  Ordering  the   foundation  of  school  boards  in  every  city  in  the 

Empire. 

15.  Establishing  a  Bureau  of  Mines  and  Railroads. 

16.  Encouraging  journalists  to  write  on  all  political  subjects. 

17.  Establishing  naval  academies  and  training  ships. 

18.  Summoning  the  ministers  and  provincial  authorities  to  assist  the 
Emperor  in  his  work  of  reform. 

19.  Directing  that  schools  be  founded  in  connection  with  all  the  Chi- 
nese legations  in  foreign  countries  for  the  benefit  of  the  children  of  Chi- 
nese in  those  countries. 

20.  Establishing  commercial  bureaus  in  Shanghai  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  trade. 

21.  Abolishing  six  useless  Boards  in  Peking. 

22.  Granting  the  right  to  memorialize  the  Throne  by  sealed  me- 
morials. 

23.  Dismissing  two  presidents  and  four  vice-presidents  of  the  Board 
of  Rites  for  disobeying  the  Emperor's  orders  that  memorials  should  be 
presented  to  him  unopened. 

24.  Abolishing  the  governorships  of  Hupeh,  Kwang-tung  and  Yun-nan 
as  a  useless  expense  to  the  country. 

25.  EstabUshing  schools  for  instruction  in  the  preparation  of  tea  and 

silk. 

26.  Abolishing  the  slow  courier  posts  in  favour  of  the  Imperial  Cus- 
toms' Post. 

27.  Approving  a  system  of  budgets  as  in  Western  countries. 

But,  alas,  it  is  disastrous  to  try  to  "  hustle  the  East."  The 
Chinese  are  phlegmatic  and  will  endure  much,  but  this  was  a 
little  too  much.  Myriads  of  scholars  and  officials,  who  saw 
their  hopes  and  positions  jeopardized  by  the  new  tests,  pro- 
tested with  all  the  virulence  of  the  silversmiths  of  Ephesus,  and 
all  the  conservatism  of  China  ralUed  to  their  support. 

Meantime,  the  Yellow  River,  aptly  named  "  China's  Sor- 
row," again  overflowed  its  banks,  devastating  a  region  100 
miles  long   and  varying  from  twenty-five  to  fifty  miles  wide. 


192  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Three  hundred  villages  were  swept  away  and  1,000,000  people 
made  homeless.  Famine  and  pestilence  speedily  followed,  so 
that  the  whole  catastrophe  assumed  appalling  proportions. 
Even  American  communities  are  apt  to  become  reckless  and 
riotous  in  time  of  calamity,  and  in  China  this  tendency  of  hu- 
man nature  was  intensified  by  a  superstition  which  led  the  peo- 
ple to  believe  that  the  disaster  was  due  to  the  baleful  influence 
of  the  foreigners,  or  that  it  was  a  punishment  for  their  failure 
to  resist  them,  while  in  the  farther  north  a  drought  led  to 
equally  superstitious  fury  against  "the  foreign  devils." 


XVII 

THE  BOXER  UPRISING 

THE  now  famous  Boxers  were  members  of  two  of  the 
secret  societies  which  have  long  flourished  in  China. 
To  the  Chinese  they  are  known  as  League  of  United 
Patriots,  Great  Sword  Society,  Righteous  Harmony  Fists'  As- 
sociation and  kindred  names.  Originally,  they  were  hostile 
to  the  foreign  Manchu  dynasty.  When  Germany  made  the 
murder  of  two  Roman  Catholic  missionaries  a  pretext  for  push- 
ing her  political  ambitions,  the  Boxers  naturally  arrayed  them- 
selves against  them.  As  the  champions  of  the  national  spirit 
against  the  foreigners,  the  membership  rapidly  increased.  Super- 
natural power  was  claimed.  Temples  were  converted  into 
meeting-places,  and  soon   excited  men  were  drilling  in  every 

village. 

The  real  ruler  of  China  at  this  time,  as  all  the  world  knows, 
was   the   Empress    Dowager,  who   has  been  characterized  as 
"  the  only  man  in  China."     At  any  rate,  she  is  a  woman  of 
extraordinary  force  of  character.     She  was  astute  enough  to 
encourage  the  Boxers,  and  thus  turn  one  of  the  most  trouble- 
some foes  of  the  Manchu  throne  against  the  common  enemy, 
the  foreigner.     Under  her   influence,  the  depredations  of  the 
Boxers,  which  were  at  first  confined  to  the  Shantung  Province, 
spread  with  the  swiftness  of  a  prairie  fire,  until  in  the  spring  of 
1900  the  most  important  provinces  of  the  Empire  were  ablaze 
and  the  legations  in  Peking  were  closely  besieged.     In   the 
heat  of  the  conflict  and  under  the  agonizing  strain  of  anxiety 
for  imperilled   loved  ones,   many  hard  things  were   said  and 
written    about   the   officials    who   allied    themselves   with  the 
Boxers.     But  Sir  Robert  Hart,  who  personally  knew  them  and 

193 


1^4  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

who  suffered  as  much  as  any  one  from  their  fury,  candidly 
wrote  after  the  siege  :  "  These  men  were  eminent  in  their  own 
country  for  their  learning  and  services,  were  animated  by 
patriotism,  were  enraged  by  foreign  dictation,  and  had  the 
courage  of  their  convictions.  We  must  do  them  the  justice  of 
allowing  that  they  were  actuated  by  high  motives  and  love  of 
country,  "  though  he  adds,  "that  does  not  always  or  neces- 
sarily mean  political  ability  or  highest  wisdom." 

And  so  the  irrepressible  conflict  broke  out.  It  had  to  come, 
a  conflict  between  conservatism  and  progress,  between  race 
prejudice  and  brotherhood,  between  superstition  and  Chris- 
tianity, the  tremendous  conflict  of  ages  which  every  nation  has 
had  to  fight,  and  which  in  China  was  not  different  in  kind, 
but  only  on  a  more  colossal  scale  because  there  it  involved 
half  the  human  race  at  once.  Of  course  it  was  impossible 
for  so  vast  a  nation  permanently  to  segregate  itself.  The  river 
of  progress  cannot  be  permanently  stayed.  It  will  gather  force 
behind  an  obstacle  until  it  is  able  to  sweep  it  away.  The 
Boxer  uprising  was  the  breaking  up  of  this  fossilized  conserv- 
atism. It  was  such  a  tumultuous  upheaval  as  the  crusades 
caused  in  breaking  up  the  stagnation  of  mediaeval  Europe.  As 
France  opposed  the  new  ideas,  which  in  England  were  quietly 
accepted,  only  to  have  them  surge  over  her  in  the  frightful 
flood  of  the  revolution,  so  China  entered  with  the  violence  al- 
ways inseparable  from  resistance  the  transition  which  Japan 
welcomed  with  a  more  open  mind. 

Though  missionaries  were  not  the  real  cause  of  the  Boxer 
uprising,  its  horrors  fell  most  heavily  upon  them.  This  was 
partly  because  many  of  them  were  living  at  exposed  points  in 
the  interior  while  most  other  foreigners  were  assembled  in  the 
treaty  ports  where  they  were  better  protected  ;  partly  because 
the  movement  developed  such  hysterical  frenzy  that  it  attacked 
with  blind,  unreasoning  fury  every  available  foreigner,  and 
partly  because  in  most  places  the  actual  killing  and  pillaging 
were  not  done  by  the  people  who  best  knew  the  missionaries 


The  Boxer  Uprising  195 

but  by  mobs  from  the  slums,  ruffians  from  other  villages,  or, 
as  in  Paoting-fu  and  Shan-si,  in  obedience  to  the  direct  orders 
of  bigoted  officials. 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  the  innocent  suffered  more  than 
the  guilty.  Dr.  A.  H.  Smith  '  concluded  after  careful  inquiry 
that  "the  devastating  Boxer  cyclone  cost  the  lives  of  135  adult 
Protestant  missionaries  and  fifty-three  children  and  of  thirty- 
five  Roman  Catholic  Fathers  and  nine  Sisters.  The  Protestants 
were  in  connection  with  ten  different  missions,  one  being  un- 
connected. They  were  murdered  in  four  provinces  and  in 
Mongolia,  and  belonged  to  Great  Britain,  the  United  States  and 
Sweden.  No  such  outbreak  against  Christianity  has  been 
seen  in  modern  times.  The  destruction  of  property  was  on 
the  same  continental  scale.  Generally  speaking,  all  mission 
stations  north  of  the  Yellow  River,  with  all  their  dwelling-houses, 
chapels,  hospitals,  dispensaries,  schools,  and  buildings  of  every 
description  were  totally  destroyed,  though  there  were  occasional 
exceptions,  of  which  the  village  where  these  pages  are  written 
was  one.  The  central  and  southern  portions  of  the  Empire 
were  only  partially  affected  by  the  anti-foreign  madness,  not 
because  they  were  under  different  conditions,  but  mainly 
through  the  strong  repressive  measures  of  four  men,  Liu  Kun 
Yi  and  Chang  Chih-tung,  Governors-General  of  the  four  great 
provinces  in  the  Yang-tse  Valley ;  Yuan  Shih  Kai  in  Shantung, 
and  a  Manchu,  Tuan  Fang,  in  Shen-si.  The  jurisdiction  of 
this  quartette  made  an  impassable  barrier  across  which  the 
movement  was  unable  to  project  itself  in  force,  but  much  mis- 
chief in  an  isolated  way  was  wrought  in  nearly  every  part  of 
China  not  rigorously  controlled." 

So  many  volumes  have  been  written  about  the  Boxer  Upris- 
ing that  it  is  not  necessary  to  double  the  size  of  this  book  in 
order  to  recount  the  details.  For  the  full  narrative,  the  reader 
is  referred  to  the  books  mentioned  below.*     But  I  cannot  for- 

>  "  Rex  Christus,"  p.  210. 

'  "  China  in  Convulsion,"  Arthur  H.  Smith  ;  "  The  Outbreak  in  China," 


196  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

bear  some  description  of  the  scenes  of  massacre  that  I  person- 
ally visited.  I  was  unable  to  go  to  the  remoter  province  of 
Shan-si  where  so  many  devoted  men  and  women  laid  down 
their  lives  and  where  many  who  escaped  death  endured  inde- 
scribable hardships.  But  in  the  province  of  Shantung,  where 
the  Boxer  Uprising  originated,  I  was  witness  to  the  ruin  that 
was  wrought  in  many  places,  though  the  iron  hand  of  the 
great  Governor,  Yuan  Shih  Kai,  prevented  much  bloodshed. 
Then  I  turned  to  the  northern  province  of  Chih-li  where  official 
hands,  instead  of  restraining,  actually  guided  and  goaded  the 
maddened  rioters. 

After  a  delightful  voyage  of  eighteen  hours  from  Chefoo 
over  a  smooth  sea,  we  anchored  outside  the  bar,  nine  miles 
from  shore,  the  tide  not  permitting  our  steamer  to  cross  with 
its  heavy  load.  A  tug  took  us  off  and  entering  the  Pei-ho 
River,  we  passed  the  famous  Taku  forts  to  the  railway  wharf  at 
Tong-ku.  It  was  significant  to  find  foreign  flags  flying  over  the 
Taku  forts  and  also  over  the  mud-walled  villages  near  by. 
Scores  of  merchant  steamers,  transports  and  war  vessels  were 
lying  off  Taku  as  well  as  hundreds  of  junks.  The  river  was 
full  of  smaller  craft  among  which  were  several  Japanese  and 
American  gunboats.  The  railroad  station  presented  a  motley 
appearance.  A  regiment  of  Japanese  had  just  arrived  and 
while  we  were  waiting,  three  train-loads  of  British  Sikhs  and 
several  cars  of  Austrian  marines  and  British  "  Tommy  Atkins  " 
came  in.  The  platform  was  thronged  with  officers  and  soldiers 
of  various  nationalities,  including  a  few  Russians. 

Nothing  could  be  more  dreary  than  the  mud  flats  that  the 

F.  L.  Hawks  Pott ;  "  The  World  Crisis  in  China,  1900,"  Allen  S.  Will; 
"  Siege  Days,"  A.  H.  Mateer  ;  "  The  Siege  of  Peking,"  Wm.  A.  P. 
Martin  ;  "  The  Providence  of  God  in  the  Siege  of  Peking,"  C.  H.  Fenn  ; 
"  The  Tragedy  of  Paoting-fu,"  Isaac  C.  Ketler  ;  "  The  China  Martyrs  of 
1900,"  Robert  C.  Forsythe  ;  "  China,"  James  H.  Wilson  ;  "  China's  Book 
of  Martyrs,"  Luella  Miner;  "Two  Heroes  of  Cathay,"  Luella  Miner ; 
"  Through  Fire  and  Sword  in  Shan-si,"  E.  H.  Edwards ;  "  Chinese 
Heroes,"  I.  T.  Headland  ;  "  Martyred  Missionaries  of  the  C.  I.  M.,"  Brown- 
hall;  <<  The  Crisis  in  China,"  G.  B,  Smith  and  others. 


The  Boxer  Uprising  197 

traveller  to  the  imperial  city  first  sees.  The  greater  part  of  the 
way  from  Taku  to  Peking,  the  soil  is  poor  and  little  cultivated. 
But  as  we  advanced,  kao-liang  fields  were  more  frequent, 
though  the  growth  was  far  behind  that  in  Shantung  at  the  same 
season.  Small  trees  were  numerous  during  the  latter  half  of 
the  trip.  The  soil  being  too  thin  for  good  crops,  the  people 
grow  more  fuel  and  fruit. 

Evidences  of  the  great  catastrophe  were  seen  long  before 
reaching  the  capital.  Burned  villages  and  battered  buildings 
lined  the  route.  At  Tien-tsin  several  of  the  foreign  buildings 
had  shell  holes.  One  corrugated  iron  building  near  the  rail- 
way station  was  pierced  like  a  sieve  and  thousands  of  native 
houses  were  in  ruins.  The  city  wall  had  been  razed  to  the 
ground  and  a  highway  made  where  it  had  stood — an  unspeakable 
humiliation  to  the  proud  commercial  metropolis.  The  Japa- 
nese soldiers  teased  the  citizens  by  telling  them  that  "a  city 
without  a  wall  is  like  a  woman  without  clothes,"  and  the 
people  keenly  felt  the  shame  implied  in  the  taunt. 

In  Peking,  the  very  fact  that  the  railroad  train  on  which  we 
travelled  rushed  noisily  through  a  ragged  chasm  in  the  wall  of 
the  Chinese  city,  and  stopped  at  the  entrance  of  the  Temple  of 
Heaven,  was  suggestive  of  the  consequences  of  war.  The 
city,  as  a  whole,  was  not  as  badly  injured  as  I  had  expected  to 
find  it,  but  the  ravages  of  war  were  evident  enough.  Wrecked 
shops,  crumbled  houses,  shot-torn  walls  were  on  every  side, 
while  the  most  sacred  places  to  a  Chinese  and  a  Manchu  had 
been  profaned.  At  other  times  the  Purple  Forbidden  City, 
the  Winter  and  Summer  Palaces,  the  Temple  of  Heaven  and 
kindred  imperial  enclosures  are  inaccessible  to  the  foreigner. 
But  a  pass  from  the  military  authorities  opened  to  us  every  door. 
We  walked  freely  through  the  extensive  grounds  and  into  all 
the  famous  buildings — including  the  throne  rooms  which  the 
highest  Chinese  official  can  approach  only  upon  his  knees  and 
with  his  face  abjectly  on  the  stone  pavement — and  the  private 
apartments  of  the  Emperor  and  the  Empress  Dowager.     I  was 


198  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

impressed  by  the  vastness  of  the  Palace  buildings  and  grounds, 
the  carvings  of  stone  and  wood,  and  the  number  of  articles  of 
foreign  manufacture.  But  thousands  of  Americans  in  moder- 
ate circumstances  have  more  spacious  and  comfortable  bed- 
rooms than  those  of  the  Emperor  and  Empress  Dowager  of 
China.  All  the  living  apartments  looked  cheerless.  The 
floors  were  of  artificial  stone  or  brick  in  squares  of  about 
20x20  inches  and  of  course  everything  was  covered  with  dust. 
The  far-famed  Temple  of  Heaven  is  the  most  artistic  building 
in  China,  a  dream  of  beauty,  colour  and  grace.  For  a  genera- 
tion before  the  siege  of  Peking,  no  foreigner  except  General 
Grant  had  entered  that  sacred  enclosure,  and  the  Chinese  raised 
a  furore  because  Li  Hung  Chang  admitted  even  the  distinguished 
American.  As  I  freely  walked  about  the  place,  photographed 
the  Temple  and  stood  on  the  circular  altar  that  is  supposed  to 
be  the  centre  of  the  earth  and  where  the  Emperor  worships 
alone  at  the  winter  solstice,  British  Sikhs  lounged  under  the 
trees,  army  mules  munched  the  luxuriant  grass  and  quar- 
termasters' wagons  stood  in  long  rows  near  the  sacred  spot 
where  a  Chinese  would  prostrate  himself  in  reverence  and  fear. 
We  rode  past  innumerable  ruined  buildings  and  through 
modey  throngs  of  Manchus,  Chinese,  German,  French,  Italian, 
British  and  Japanese  soldiers  to  the  Presbyterian  compound  at 
Duck  Lane,  which,  though  narrow,  is  not  so  unimportant  a 
street  as  its  name  implies.  But  where  devoted  missionaries 
had  so  long  lived  and  toiled,  we  saw  only  shapeless  heaps  of 
broken  bricks  and  a  few  tottering  fragments  of  walls.  At  the 
Second  Street  compound  there  was  even  greater  ruin,  if  that 
were  possible.  Silently  we  stood  beside  the  great  hole  which 
had  once  been  the  hospital  cistern  and  from  which  the  Japanese 
soldiers,  after  the  siege,  had  taken  the  bodies  of  a  hundred 
murdered  Chinese.  Not  all  had  been  Christians,  for  in  that 
carnival  of  blood,  many  who  were  merely  suspected  of  being 
friendly  to  foreigners  were  killed,  while  foes  took  advantage  of 
the  tumult  to  pay  off  old  scores  of  hate. 


f 


'.^//lii-^Mi 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  HEAVEN,  PEKING 


The  Boxer  Uprising  199 

The  first  reports  that  had  corne  to  New  York  were  that  four- 
fifths  of  the  Chinese  Christians  and  three-fourths  of  the  boys  and 
girls  in  the  boarding-schools  had  been  killed  or  had  died  under 
the  awful  hardships  of  that  fatal  summer.  But  as  the  months 
passed,  first  one  and  then  another  and  another  were  found. 
Husbands  searched  for  wives,  parents  for  children,  brothers 
for  sisters,  until  a  considerable  number  of  the  missing  ones  had 
been  found,  though  the  number  of  the  lost  was  still  great. 

About  two  hundred  of  these  surviving  Christians  and  their 
families  were  living  together  in  native  buildings  adjoining  the 
residence  in  which  we  were  entertained.  Their  history  was 
one  of  agony  and  bereavement.  Including  those  who  fell  at 
Paoting-fu,  191  of  their  fellow  Christians  had  received  the 
crown  of  martyrdom,  so  that  almost  every  survivor  had  lost 
father  or  mother,  brother  or  sister  or  friend.  The  Chinese  are 
supposed  to  be  a  phlegmatic  people  and  not  given  to  emotion. 
But  never  have  I  met  a  congregation  more  swiftly  responsive 
than  this  one  in  Peking  as  I  bore  to  them  kindly  messages  from 
many  friends  in  other  lands. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Cathedral  was  immortalized  by  Bishop 
Favier's  defense  during  the  memorable  siege.  The  mission 
buildings  occupy  a  spacious  and  strongly-walled  compound  in 
the  Manchu  city.  Hundreds  of  bullet  and  shell  holes  in  the  roofs 
and  walls  were  suggestive  evidences  of  the  fury  of  the  Boxer 
attack,  while  great  pits  marked  the  spots  where  mines  had 
been  exploded.  ^ 

I  called  on  the  famous  Bishop.  He  was,  for  he  has  since 
died,  a  burly,  heavily-bearded  Frenchman  of  about  sixty-five 
apparently.  He  received  us  most  cordially  and  readily  talked 
of  the  siege.  He  said  that  of  the  eighty  Europeans  and  3,400 
Christians  with  him  in  the  siege,  2,700  were  women  and  chil- 
dren. Four  hundred  were  buried,  of  whom  forty  were  killed 
by  bullets,  twenty-five  by  one  explosion,  eighty-one  by  another 
and  one  by  another.  Of  the  rest,  some  died  of  disease  but  the 
greater  part  of  starvation.     Twenty-one  children  were  buried 


200  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

at  one  time  in  one  grave.  Beside  these  400  who  were  killed 
or  who  died,  many  more  were  blown  to  pieces  in  explosions  so 
that  nothing  could  be  found  to  bury.  Fifty-one  children  dis- 
appeared in  this  way  and  not  a  fragment  remained. 

The  first  month  of  the  siege,  the  food  allowance  was  half  a 
pound  a  day.  The  first  half  of  the  second  month,  it  was  re- 
duced to  four  ounces,  but  for  the  second  half  only  two  ounces 
could  be  served  and  the  people  had  to  eat  roots,  bark  and  the 
leaves  of  trees  and  shrubs.  Eighteen  mules  were  eaten  during 
the  siege.  The  Bishop  said  that  in  the  diocese  outside  of 
Peking,  6,000  Chinese  Catholics,  including  three  native  priests, 
were  killed  by  the  Boxers.  Only  four  European  priests  were 
killed,  one  in  Peking  and  three  outside.  "  Not  one  foreign 
priest  left  the  diocese  during  the  troubles,"  a  statement  that  is 
equally  true  of  the  Presbyterian  missionaries  and,  so  far  as  I 
know,  of  those  of  other  churches. 
^  Clouds  lowered  as  we  left  Peking,  July  6th,  on  the  Peking  and 
Hankow  Railway  for  Paoting-fu,  that  city  of  sacred  and  pain- 
ful interest  to  every  American  Christian.  Soon  rain  began  to 
fall,  and  it  steadily  continued  while  we  rode  over  the  vast  level 
plain,  through  unending  fields  of  kao-liang,  interspersed  with 
plots  of  beans,  peanuts,  melons  and  cucumbers,  and  mud  and 
brick-walled  villages  whose  squalid  wretchedness  was  hidden 
by  the  abundant  foliage  of  the  trees,  which  are  the  only  beauty 
of  Chinese  cities.  At  almost  every  railway  station,  roofless 
buildings,  crumbling  walls  and  broken  water  tanks  bore  painful 
witness  to  the  rage  of  the  Boxers.  At  Liang-hsiang-hsien  the 
first  foreign  property  was  destroyed,  and  all  along  the  line 
outrages  were  perpetrated  on  the  inoffensive  native  Christians. 
Nowhere  else  in  China  was  the  hatred  of  the  foreigner  more 
violent,  for  here  hereditary  pride  and  bigoted  conservatism, 
unusually  intense  even  for  China,  were  reinforced  by  Boxer 
chiefs  from  the  neighbouring  province  of  Shantung,  and  were 
particularly  irritated  by  the  aggressiveness  of  Roman  Catholic 
priests  and  by  the  construction  of  the  railroad.     It  is  only  no 


The  Boxer  Uprising  201 

miles  from  Peking  to  Paoting-fu.  But  the  schedule  was  slow 
and  the  stops  long,  so  that  we  were  six  hours  in  making  the 
journey.  Arriving  at  the  large,  well-built  brick  station,  we 
bumped  and  splashed  in  a  Chinese  cart  through  narrow,  muddy 
streets  to  the  residence  of  a  wealthy  Chinese  family  that  had 
deemed  a  hasty  departure  expedient  when  the  French  and 
British  forces  entered  the  city,  and  whose  house  had  been 
assigned  by  the  magistrate  as  temporary  quarters  for  the  Pres- 
byterian missionaries. 

Protestant  mission  work  at  Paoting-fu  was  begun  only  about 
thirty  years  ago  by  the  American  Board.  The  station  was 
never  a  large  one,  the  total  nominal  force  of  missionaries  up 
to  the  Boxer  outbreak  being  two  ordained  married  men,  Ewing 
and  Pitkin,  one  physician.  Dr.  Noble,  and  two  single  women, 
the  Misses  Morrill  and  Gould.  In  the  whole  station  field 
including  the  out-stations,  there  were  not  more  than  300  Chris- 
tians and  those  were  south  of  a  line  drawn  through  the  centre 
of  the  city  of  Paoting-fu.  There  were  two  boarding-schools, 
one  for  boys  and  one  for  girls,  both  small,  and  a  general 
hospital. 

The  China  Inland  Mission  had  no  mission  work  at  Paoting-fu, 
but  as  the  city  is  at  the  head  of  navigation  of  the  Fu  River 
from  Tien-tsin  and  was  also  at  that  time  the  terminus  of  the 
Peking  and  Hankow  Railway,  the  Mission  made  it  a  point  of 
trans-shipment  and  of  formation  of  cart  and  shendza  trains  for 
its  extensive  work  in  the  Shan-si  and  Shen-si  provinces,  and 
kept  a  forwarding  agent  there,  Mr.  Benjamin  Bagnall. 

The  Presbyterian  station  was  not  opened  till  1893,  and  the 
force  at  the  time  of  the  outbreak  consisted  of  three  ordained 
men,  the  Revs.  J.  Walter  Lowrie,  J.  A.  Miller,  and  F.  E. 
Simcox,  two  medical  men,  George  Yardley  Taylor  and  C.  V.  R. 
Hodge,  and  one  single  woman,  Dr.  Maud  A.  Mackay.  All 
of  the  men  except  Lowrie  and  Taylor  were  married,  and  the 
former  had  his  mother,  Mrs.  Amelia  P.  Lowrie,  with  him. 
With  the  exception  of  a  dispensary  and  street  chapel  in  rented 


aiiiTia-iiT' vitw^fc  wrfy, 


202  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

quarters  in  the  city,  the  station  plant  was  at  the  compound 
where,  on  a  level  tract  660  feet  in  length  by  210  feet  in  width, 
there  were  four  residences  and  a  hospital  and  chapel  combined, 
with,  of  course,  the  usual  smaller  outbuildings.  The  only 
educational  work,  beside  one  out-station  day-school,  was  a  small 
boarding-school  for  girls  recently  started  and  occupying  a  little 
building  originally  intended  for  a  stable. 

This  was  the  situation  up  to  the  fateful  month  of  June,  1900. 
Rumours  of  impending  trouble  were  numerous,  but  mission- 
aries in  China  become  accustomed  to  threatening  placards  and 
slanderous  reports.  Though  it  was  evident  that  the  opposition 
was  becoming  more  bitter,  the  missionaries  did  not  feel  that 
they  would  be  justified  in  abandoning  their  work.  Several, 
however,  were  temporarily  absent  for  other  reasons.  Of  the 
Congregational  missionaries.  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Noble  and  Mrs. 
Pitkin  were  on  furlough  in  America  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ewing 
were  spending  a  few  weeks  at  the  seaside  resort,  Pei-tai-ho, 
so  that  Mr.  Pitkin,  Miss  Morrill  and  Miss  Gould  were  the  only 
ones  left  at  the  station.  Of  the  Presbyterian  missionaries 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Miller  were  also  at  Pei-tai-ho,  Mrs.  Lowrie  had 
sailed  for  America  the  26th  of  May,  and  Mr.  Lowrie,  who  had 
accompanied  her  to  Shanghai,  was  at  Tien-tsin  on  his  way 
back  to  Paoting-fu.  The  missionaries  remaining  at  the  station 
were  thus  five, — Dr.  Taylor,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Simcox  and  their 
three  children,  and  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Hodge.  The  China  Inland 
forwarding  agent,  Mr.  Bagnall,  with  his  wife  and  little  girl, 
was  in  his  house  south  of  the  city  wall  near  the  American  Board 
compound,  and  with  him  was  the  Rev.  William  Cooper,  who 
was  on  his  way  to  Shanghai  after  a  visit  to  the  Shan-si  Mission 
and  whose  family  was  then  at  Chefoo. 

It  is  impossible  to  ascertain  all  the  details  of  the  massacre. 
None  of  the  foreigners  live  to  tell  the  painful  story.  No  other 
foreigners  reached  Paoting-fu  until  the  arrival  of  the  military 
expedition  in  October,  three  and  a  half  months  later.  The 
Chinese  who  had   participated   in  the  massacre  were  then  in 


The  Boxer  Uprising  203 

hiding.  Spectators  were  afraid  to  talk  lest  they,  too,  might  be 
held  guilty.  Most  of  the  Chinese  Christians  who  had  been 
with  the  missionaries  were  killed,  while  others  were  so  panic- 
stricken  that  they  could  remember  only  the  particular  scenes 
with  which  they  were  directly  connected.  Moreover,  in  those 
three  and  a  half  months  such  battles  and  national  commotions 
had  occurred,  including  the  capture  of  Peking  and  the  flight  of 
the  Emperor,  that  the  people  of  Paoting-fu  had  half  forgotten 
the  murder  of  a  few  missionaries  in  June. 

In  these  circumstances,  full  information  will  probably  never 
be  obtained,  though  additional  facts  may  yet  turn  up  from 
time  to  time.  But  from  all  that  can  be  learned,  and  from  the 
piecing  together  of  the  scattered  fragments  of  information  care- 
fully collected  by  Mr.  Lowrie,  who  accompanied  the  expedition, 
it  appears  that  Thursday,  June  28th,  several  Chinese  young  men 
who  had  been  studying  medicine  under  Dr.  Taylor  came  to 
him  at  the  city  dispensary,  warned  him  of  the  impending 
danger  and  urged  him  to  leave.  When  he  refused  they  be- 
sought him  to  yield,  and  though  several  of  them  were  not 
Christians,  so  strong  was  their  attachment  to  their  teacher  that 
they  shed  tears. 

Dr.  Taylor  placed  the  dispensary  and  its  contents,  together 
with  the  adjacent  street  chapel,  in  charge  of  the  district  magis- 
trate and  returned  to  the  mission  compound  outside  the  city. 
That  very  afternoon  startling  proof  was  given  that  foreboding 
was  not  ill-founded,  for  the  Rev.  Meng  Chi  Hsien,  the  native 
pastor  of  the  Congregational  Church,  was  seized  while  in  the 
city,  his  hands  cut  off,  and  the  next  morning  he  was  beheaded. 

The  missionaries  then  decided  to  leave,  drew  their  silver 
from  the  local  bank  and  hired  carts.  But  an  official  assured 
them  that  there  would  be  no  further  trouble,  and  they  con- 
cluded to  remain.  It  is  doubtful  whether  they  could  have  es- 
caped anyway,  for  the  very  next  afternoon,  Saturday,  June  30th, 
a  mob  left  the  west  gate  of  the  city,  and  marching  northward 
parallel  to  the  railroad,  turned  eastward  through  a  small  village 


.^ii=^ 


204  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

near  the  mission  compound,  which  has  always  been  the  resort 
of  bad  characters,  and  attacked  the  mission  between  five  and 
six  o'clock. 

The  first  report  that  all  the  missionaries  were  together  in  the 
house  of  Mr.  Simcox  is  now  believed  to  have  been  erroneous. 
The  Hodges  were  there,  but  Dr.  Taylor  was  in  his  own  room 
in  the  second  story  of  Mr.  Lowrie's  house.  Seizing  a  magazine 
rifle  belonging  to  Mr.  Lowrie,  he  showed  it  to  the  mob  and 
warned  them  not  to  come  nearer.  But  the  Boxers  pressed  fu- 
riously on,  in  the  superstitious  belief  that  the  foreigner's  bullet 
could  not  harm  them.  Then,  being  alone,  and  with  the  tradi- 
tions of  a  Quaker  ancestry  strong  within  him,  he  chose  rather 
to  die  himself  than  to  inflict  death  upon  the  people  he  had 
come  to  save.  The  Boxers  set  fire  to  the  house,  and  the  be- 
loved physician,  throwing  the  rifle  to  the  floor,  disappeared  amid 
the  flame  and  smoke.  But  the  body  was  not  consumed,  for  a 
Chinese  living  in  a  neighbouring  village  said  afterwards  that 
he  saw  it  lying  in  the  ruins  of  the  house  several  days 
later,  and  that  he  gave  it  decent  burial  in  a  field  near  by.  But 
there  are  hundreds  of  unmarked  mounds  in  that  region,  and 
when  the  foreign  expedition  arrived  in  October,  he  was  unable 
to  indicate  the  particular  one  which  he  had  made  for  Dr.  Tay- 
lor's remains.  Mr.  Lowrie  made  diligent  search  and  opened  a 
number  of  graves,  but  found  nothing  that  could  be  iden- 
tified. 

In  the  Simcox  house,  however,  the  two  men  were  charged 
with  the  defense  of  women  and  children,  and  to  protect  them  if 
possible  from  unspeakable  outrage,  when  they  realized  that  per- 
suasion was  vain,  they  felt  justified  as  a  last  desperate  re- 
sort in  using  force.  The  testimony  of  natives  is  to  the  effect 
that  at  least  two  Boxers  were  killed  in  the  attack,  one  of  them 
the  Boxer  chief,  Chu  Tu  Tze,  who  that  very  day  had  received 
the  rank  of  the  gilt  button  from  the  Provincial  Judge  as  a  rec- 
ognition of  his  anti-foreign  zeal  and  an  encouragement  to  con- 
tinue it.     He  was  shot  through  the  head  while  vociferously 


The  Boxer  Uprising  205 

urging  the  assault  from  the  top  of  a  large  grave  mound  near 
the  compound  wall. 

The  story  that  little  Paul  and  Francis  Simcox,  frightened 
by  the  heat  and  smoke,  ran  out  of  the  house  and  were  de- 
spatched by  the  crowd  and  their  bodies  thrown  into  a  well 
now  appears  to  be  unfounded.  All  died  together,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Simcox  and  their  three  children,  and  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Hodge;  Mr.  Simcox  being  last  seen  walking  up  and  down 
holding  the  hand  of  one  of  his  children. 

It  is  at  least  some  comfort  that  they  were  spared  the  out- 
rages and  mutilations  inflicted  on  so  many  of  the  martyrs  of 
that  awful  summer,  for  unless  some  were  struck  by  bullets, 
death  came  by  suffocation  in  burning  houses — swiftly  and 
mercifully.  No  Boxer  hand  touched  them,  living  or  dead,  but 
within  less  than  an  hour  from  the  beginning  of  the  attack,  the 
end  came,  and  the  flames  did  their  work  so  completely  that, 
save  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Taylor,  nothing  remained  upon  which 
fiendish  hale  could  wreak  itself.  Husbands  and  wives  died  as 
they  could  have  wished  to  die — together,  and  at  the  post  of 
duty. 

The  next  morning  the  Boxers,  jubilant  over  their  success  of 
the  night  before,  trooped  out  to  the  American  Board  compound 
in  the  south  suburb.  The  two  ladies  took  refuge  in  the  chapel, 
while  Mr.  Pitkin  remained  outside  to  do  what  he  could  to  keep 
back  the  mob.  But  he  was  speedily  shot  and  then  decapitated. 
His  body,  together  with  the  bodies  of  several  of  the  members 
of  the  Meng  family,  was  thrown  into  a  hastily-dug  pit  just  out- 
side the  wall  of  the  compound,  but  his  head  was  borne  in 
triumph  to  the  Provincial  Judge,  who  was  the  prime  mover  in 
the  outbreak.  He  caused  it  to  be  fixed  on  the  inside  of  the 
city  wall,  not  far  from  the  southeast  corner  and  nearly  op- 
posite the  temple  in  which  the  remaining  missionaries  were  im- 
prisoned. There,  the  Chinese  say,  it  remained  for  two  or 
three  weeks,  a  ghastly  evidence  of  the  callous  cruelty  of  a 
people  many  of  whom  must  have  known  Mr.  Pitkin  and  the 


2o6  New  Forces  In  Old  China 

good  work  done  at  the  mission  compound  not  far  distant. 
When  sorrowing  friends  arrived  in  October,  the  head  could 
not  be  found,  but  it  has  since  been  recovered  and  buried  with 
the  bodies  of  the  other  martyrs. 

The  fate  of  the  young  women,  Miss  Morrill  and  Miss  Gould, 
thus  deprived  of  their  only  protector,  was  not  long  deferred. 
After  the  fall  of  Mr.  Pitkin,  they  were  seized,  stripped  of  all 
their  clothing  except  one  upper  and  one  lower  garment,  and 
led  by  the  howling  crowd  along  a  path  leading  diagonally  from 
the  entrance  of  the  compound  to  the  road  just  east  of  it.  Miss 
Gould  did  not  die  of  fright  as  she  was  taken  from  the  chapel,  as 
was  at  first  reported,  but  at  the  point  where  the  path  enters  the 
road,  a  few  hundred  yards  from  the  chapel,  she  fainted.  Her 
ankles  were  then  tied  together,  and  another  cord  lashed  her 
wrists  in  front  of  her  body.  A  pole  was  thrust  between  legs  and 
arms,  and  she  was  carried  the  rest  of  the  way,  while  Miss  Morrill 
walked,  characteristically  giving  to  a  beggar  the  little  money  at 
her  waist,  talking  to  the  people,  and  with  extraordinary  self-pos- 
session endeavouring  to  convince  her  persecutors  of  their  folly. 
And  so  the  procession  of  bloodthirsty  men,  exulting  in  the  pos- 
session of  two  defenseless  women  one  of  them  unconscious, 
wended  its  way  northward  to  the  river  bank,  westward  to  the 
stone  bridge,  over  it  and  to  a  temple  within  the  city,  not  far 
from  the  southeast  corner  of  the  wall. 

Meantime,  Mr.  Cooper,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bagnall  and  their  lit- 
tle daughter  had  begun  the  day  in  Mr.  Bagnall's  house,  which 
was  a  short  distance  east  of  the  American  Board  compound, 
and  on  the  same  road.  Seeing  the  flames  of  the  hospital, 
which  was  the  first  building  fired  by  the  Boxers,  they  fled  east- 
ward along  the  road  to  a  Chinese  military  camp,  about  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  distant,  whose  commanding  officer  had  been 
on  friendly  terms  with  Mr.  Bagnall.  But  in  the  hour  of  need 
he  arrested  them,  ruthlessly  despoiled  them  of  their  valuables, 
and  sent  them  under  a  guard  to  the  arch  conspirator,  the  Pro- 
vincial Judge.     It  is  pitiful  to  hear  of  the  innocent  child  cling- 


The  Boxer  Uprising  207 

ing  in  terror  to  her  mother's  dress.  But  there  was  no  pity  in 
the  heart  of  the  brutal  judge,  and  the  little  party  was  sent  to 
the  temple  where  the  Misses  Morrill  and  Gould  were  already 
imprisoned. 

All  this  was  in  the  morning.  A  pretended  trial  was  held, 
and  about  four  in  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  all  were 
taken  to  a  spot  outside  the  southeast  corner  of  the  city  wall, 
and  there,  before  the  graves  of  two  Boxers,  they  were  be- 
headed and  their  bodies  thrown  into  a  pit. 

Months  passed  before  any  effort  was  made  by  the  foreign 
armies  in  Peking  to  reach  Paoting-fu.  Shortly  after  the  occu- 
pation of  the  capital,  I  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  State  in  Wash- 
ington reminding  him  again  of  the  American  citizens  who  at 
last  accounts  were  at  Paoting-fu,  and  urging  that  the  United 
States  commander  in  Peking  be  instructed  to  send  an  expedi- 
tion there,  not  to  punish  for  I  did  not  deem  it  my  duty  to  dis- 
cuss that  phase  of  the  question,  but  to  ascertain  whether  any 
Americans  were  yet  living  and  to  make  an  investigation  as  to 
what  had  happened. 

Secretary  Hay  promptly  cabled  Minister  Conger,  who  soon 
wired  back  that  all  the  Americans  at  Paoting-fu  had  been 
killed.  The  United  States  forces  took  no  part  in  the  punitive"\ 
expeditions  sent  out  by  the  European  commanders,  partly,  no 
doubt,  because  our  Government  preferred  to  act  on  the  theory 
that  it  would  be  wiser  to  give  the  Chinese  Government  an  op- 
portunity to  punish  the  guilty,  and  partly  because  the  Adminis- 
tration did  not  desire  the  United  States  to  be  identified  with 
the  expeditions  which  were  reputed  to  equal  the  Boxers  in  the 
merciless  barbarity  of  burning,  pillaging,  ravishing  and 
killing. 

Still,  it  is  not  pleasing  to  reflect  that  though  there  was  an 
ample  American  force  in  Peking  only  no  miles  away,  we 
were  indebted  to  a  British  general  for  the  opportunity  to  acquire 
any  accurate  information  as  to  the  fate  of  eleven  Americans. 
An  expedition  of  inquiry,  at  least,  might  have  been  sent.     But 


2o8  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

as  it  was,  it  was  not  till  October  that  three  columns  of  Europeans 
(still  no  Americans)  left  for  Paoting-fu.  One  column  was 
French,  under  General  Baillard.  The  second  was  British  and 
German  under  Generals  Campbell  and  Von  Ketteler,  boih  of 
these  columns  starting  from  Tien-tsin.  The  third  column  left 
Peking  and  was  composed  of  British  and  Italians  led  by  Gen- 
eral Gaselee.  The  plan  was  for  the  three  columns  to  unite  as 
they  approached  the  city.  But  General  Baillard  made  forced 
marches  and  reached  Paoting-fu  October  15th,  so  that  when 
General  Gaselee  arrived  on  the  17th,  he  found,  to  his  surprise 
and  chagrin,  that  the  French  had  already  taken  bloodless  pos- 
session of  the  city.  The  British  and  German  columns  from 
Tien-tsin  did  not  arrive  till  the  20th  and  21st.  With  them 
came  the  Rev.  J.  Walter  Lowrie,  who  had  obtained  permission 
to  accompany  it  as  an  interpreter  for  the  British, 

The  allied  Generals  immediately  made  stern  inquisitions  into 
the  outrages  that  had  been  committed,  which,  of  course,  in- 
cluded those  upon  Roman  Catholics  as  well  as  upon  Protes- 
tants. Mr.  Lowrie,  as  the  only  man  who  could  speak  Chinese, 
and  the  only  one,  too,  who  personally  knew  the  Chinese,  at 
once  came  into  prominence.  To  the  people,  he  appeared  to 
have  the  power  of  life  and  death.  All  examinations  had  to  be 
conducted  through  him.  All  accusations  and  evidence  had  to 
be  sifted  by  him.  The  guilty  tried  to  shift  the  blame  upon  the 
innocent,  and  enemies  sought  to  pay  off  old  scores  of  hatred 
upon  their  foes  by  charging  them  vyith  complicity  in  the  massa- 
cres. It  would  have  accorded  with  Chinese  custom  if  Mr. 
Lowrie  had  availed  himself  to  the  utmost  of  his  opportunity  to 
punish  the  antagonists  of  the  missionaries,  especially  as  his 
dearest  friends  had  been  remorselessly  murdered  and  all  of  his 
personal  property  destroyed.  It  was  not  in  human  nature  to 
be  lenient  in  sucli  circumstances,  and  the  Chinese  fully  ex- 
pected awful  vengeance. 

Great  was  their  amazement  when  they  saw  the  man  whom 
they  had  so  grievously  wronged  acting  not  only  with  modera- 


The  Boxer  Uprising  209 

tion  and  strict  justice,  but  in  a  kind  and  forgiving  spirit. 
Every  scrap  of  testimony  was  carefully  analyzed  in  order  that 
no  innocent  man  might  suffer.  Instead  of  securing  the  execu- 
tion of  hundreds  of  smaller  officials  and  common  people,  as  is 
customary  in  China  in  such  circumstances,  Mr.  Lovvrie  coun- 
selled the  Generals  to  try  Ting  Jung,  who  at  the  time  of  the 
massacre  was  Provincial  Judge  but  who  had  since  been  pro- 
moted to  the  post  of  Provincial  Treasurer  and  acting  Viceroy  ; 
Kwei  Heng  the  commander  of  the  Manchu  garrison,  and  Weng 
Chan  Kwei  the  colonel  in  command  of  the  Chinese  Imperial 
forces  who  had  seized  the  escaping  Bagnall  party  and  sent  them 
back  to  their  doom.  The  evidence  plainly  showed  that  these 
high  officials  were  the  direct  and  responsible  instigators  of  the 
uprising,  that  they  had  ordered  every  movement,  and  that  the 
crowd  of  smaller  officials,  Boxers  and  common  people  had  sim- 
ply obeyed  their  orders.  The  three  dignitaries  were  found 
guilty  and  condemned  to  death. 

Was  ever  retributive  justice  more  signally  illustrated  than  in 
the  place  in  which  they  were  imprisoned  pending  Count  von 
Waldersee's  approval  of  the  sentence  ?  The  military  authori- 
ties selected  the  place,  not  with  reference  to  its  former  uses,  of 
which  indeed  they  were  ignorant,  but  simply  because  it  was 
convenient,  empty  and  clean.  But  it  was  the  Presbyterian 
chapel  and  dispensary  in  which  Mr.  Lowrie  had  so  often 
preached  the  gospel  of  peace  and  good  will  and  the  martyred 
Dr.  Taylor  had  so  often  healed  the  sick  in  the  name  of  Christ. 

Not  long  afterwards,  the  three  officials  were  led  to  a  level, 
open  space,  just  east  of  a  little  clump  of  trees  not  far  from  the 
southwest  corner  of  the  city  wall,  and  as  near  as  practicable  to 
the  place  where  the  missionaries  had  been  beheaded,  and  there, 
in  the  presence  of  all  the  foreign  soldiers,  they  were  themselves 
beheaded. 

Nor  was  this  all,  for  Chinese  officials  are  never  natives  of  the 
cities  they  govern,  but  are  sent  to  them  from  other  provinces. 
Moreover,  they  usually  remain  in  one  place  only  a  few  years. 


210  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

The  people  fear  and  obey  them  as  long  as  they  are  ofificials,  but 
often  care  little  what  becomes  of  them  afterwards.  They  had 
not  befriended  them  during  their  trial  and  they  did  not  attend 
their  execution.  The  Generals  therefore  felt  that  some  punish- 
ment must  be  inflicted  upon  the  city.  A  Chinese  city  is  proud 
of  the  stately  and  ponderous  towers  which  ornament  the  gates 
and  corners  of  its  massive  wall  and  protect  the  inhabitants 
from  foes,  human  and  demoniac.  All  of  these,  but  two 
comparatively  small  ones,  were  blown  up  by  order  of  the 
foreign  generals.  The  temples  which  the  Boxers  had  used  for 
their  meetings,  including  the  one  in  which  the  American 
Board  and  China  Inland  missionaries  had  been  imprisoned, 
were  also  destroyed,  while  the  splendid  official  temple  of  the  city, 
dedicated  to  its  patron  deity,  was  utterly  wrecked  by  dynamite. 

Not  till  March  23d  could  memorial  services  be  held.  Then 
a  party  of  missionaries  and  friends  came  down  from  Peking. 
The  surviving  Christians  assembled.  The  new  city  officials 
erected  a  temporary  pavilion  on  the  site  of  the  Presbyterian 
compound,  writing  over  the  entrance  arch :  "  They  held  the 
truth  unto  death."  Within,  potted  flowers  and  decorated 
banners  adorned  the  tables  and  walls.  The  scene  was  solemnly 
impressive.  Mr.  Lowrie,  Dr.  Wherry  and  Mr.  Killie  and 
others  made  appropriate  addresses  to  an  audience  in  which 
there  were,  besides  themselves,  fifteen  missionaries  representing 
four  denominations,  German  and  French  army  officers,  Chinese 
officials  and  Chinese  Christians.  A  German  military  band 
furnished  appropriate  music  and  two  Roman  Catholic  priests 
of  the  city  sent  flowers  and  kind  letters.  The  following  day 
a  similar  service  was  held  on  the  site  of  the  American  Board 
compound. 

We  sadly  visted  all  these  places.  It  was  about  the  hour  of 
the  attack  that  we  approached  the  Presbyterian  compound.  Of 
the  once  pleasant  homes  and  mission  buildings,  not  even  ruins 
were  left.  A  few  hundred  yards  away,  the  site  could  not 
have  been  distinguished  from  the  rest  of  the  open  fields  if  my 


The  Boxer  Uprising  2 1 1 

companions  had  not  pointed  out  marks  mournfully  intelligible 
to  them  but  hardy  recognizable  by  a  stranger.  The  very 
foundations  had  been  dug  up  by  Chinese  hunting  for  silver,  and 
every  scrap  of  material  had  been  carried  away.  Even  the 
trees  and  bushes  had  been  removed  by  the  roots  and  used 
for  firewood.  In  front  of  the  site  of  the  Simcox  house  are  a 
few  unmarked  mounds.  All  but  one  contain  the  fragments  of 
the  bodies  of  the  Chinese  helpers  and  Christians,  and  that  one, 
the  largest,  holds  the  few  pieces  of  bones  which  were  all  that 
could  be  found  in  the  ruins  of  the  house  in  which  the  mission- 
aries perished.  A  few  more  may  yet  be  found.  We  ourselves 
discovered  five  small  pieces  which  Dr.  Charles  Lewis  after- 
wards identified  as  human  bones.  But  their  charred  and 
broken  condition  showed  how  completely  the  merciful  fire  had 
done  its  work  of  keeping  the  sacred  remains  from  the  hands  of 
those  who  would  have  shamefully  misused  them.  The 
American  Board  and  China  Inland  Mission  compounds  were 
also  in  ruins,  a  chaos  of  desolation.  But  as  the  martyred 
missionaries  and  native  Christians  were  beheaded  and  not 
burned,  their  bodies  have  been  recovered  and  interred  in  a  long 
row  of  twenty-three  graves. 

The  negotiations  of  foreign  Powers  with  the  Chinese  regard- 
ing the  payment  of  indemnity  were,  as  might  be  expected,  pro- 
tracted and  full  of  difficulties.  Some  of  the  Powers  favoured 
extreme  demands  which,  if  acceded  to,  would  have  ruined  the 
Empire  or  resulted  in  its  immediate  partition,  even  if  they  did 
not  cause  a  new  and  more  bitter  outbreak  of  hostilities.  Other 
Powers,  notably  the  United  States,  favoured  moderate  terms, 
holding  that  China  should  not  be  asked  to  pay  sums  that  were 
clearly  beyond  her  ability.  After  almost  interminable  disputes, 
the  total  sum  to  be  paid  by  China  was,  by  the  final  protocol 
signed  September  7,  1901,  fixed  at  450,000,000  taels  to  be 
paid  in  thirty-nine  annual  installments  with  interest  at  four  per 
cent,  on  the  deferred  payments  and  to  be  distributed  as  fol- 
lows : 


212  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Country  Taels 

Germany 90,070,515 

Austria-Hungary 4,003,920 

Belgium 8,484,345 

Spain I35'3I5 

United  States 32,939,055  ' 

France       70,878,240 

Portugal 92,350 

Great  Britain   •    • 50,712,795 

Italy 26,617,005 

Japan 34,793>ioo 

Netherlands 782,100 

Russia 130,371,120 

International  (Sweden  and  Norway,  ^62,820)  212,490 


450,000,000 


The  treaty  was  not  calculated  to  make  the  Chinese  think 
more  kindly  of  their  conquerors.  Besides  the  payment  of  the 
heavy  indemnity,  the  Powers  exacted  apologies  to  Germany 
for  the  murder  of  its  minister  and  to  Japan  for  the  assassination 
of  the  chancellor  of  its  legation,  the  erection  of  monuments  in 
foreign  cemeteries  and  the  making  of  new  commercial  treaties. 
The  Chinese  were  cut  to  the  quick  by  being  told,  among  other 
things,  that  they  must  not  import  firearms  for  two  years ; 
that  no  official  examinations  would  be  held  for  five  years  in  the 
cities  where  foreigners  had  been  attacked  ;  that  an  important 
part  of  the  imperial  capital  would  be  added  to  the  already 
spacious  grounds  of  the  foreign  legations  and  that  the  whole 
would  be  fortified  and  garrisoned  by  foreign  guards ;  that  the 
Taku  forts  which  defended  the  entrance  to  Peking  would  be 
razed  and  the  railway  from  the  sea  to  the  capital  occupied  by 
foreign  troops  ;  that  members  of  anti-foreign  societies  were  to  be 
executed  ;  that  magistrates  even  though  they  were  viceroys 
were  to  be  summarily  dismissed  and  disgraced  if  they  did  not 
prevent  anti-foreign  outbreaks  and  sternly  punish  their  ring- 
leaders ;  that  court  ceremonies  in  relation  to  foreign  ministers 
must  be  conformed  to  Western  ideas ;  that  the  Tsung-li  Yamen 

»  The  equivalent  of  ^24,168,357. 


The  Boxer  Uprising  213 

(Foreign  Office)  must  be  abolished  and  a  new  ministry  of 
foreign  affairs  erected,  the  Wai-\vu  Pu,  which  must  be  regarded 
as  the  highest  of  the  departments  instead  of  the  lowest. 
China's  cup  of  humiliation  was  indeed  full. 


PART  IV 

The    Missionary     Force     and     the    Chinese 

Church 


XVIII 

BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  MISSIONARY  ENTERPRISE— 
THE  TAI-PING  REBELLION  AND  THE  LATER 
DEVELOPMENT 


T 


"^HE  first  definite  knowledge  of  the  true  God  appears 
to  have  come  to  China  with  some  Jews  who  are  said 

to  have  entered  the  Empire   in  the   third   century. 

Conjecture  has  long  been  busy  with  the  circumstances  of  that 
ancient  migration.  That  the  colony  became  fairly  numerous 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  in  1329  and  again  in  1354, 
the  Jews  are  mentioned  in  the  Chinese  records  of  the  Mongol 
dynasty,  while  early  in  the  seventeenth  century  Father  Ricci 
claimed  to  have  discovered  a  synagogue  built  in  1183.  In 
1866,  the  Rev.  Dr.  W.  A.  P.  Martin,  then  President  of  the 
Tung-wen  College  at  Peking,  visited  Kai-fung-fu,  the  centre  of 
this  Jewish  colony,  and  on  a  monument  he  found  an  inscription 
which  included  the  following  passage  :  —  ..  ..__.,--''^ 

"  With  respect  to  the  religion  of  Israel,  we  find  that  our  first  ancestor 
was  Adam.  The  founder  of  the  religion  was  Abraham  ;  then  came  Moses 
who  established  the  law,  and  handed  down  the  sacred  writings.  During 
the  dynasty  of  Han  (B.  c.  200-A.  D.  226)  this  religion  entered  China. 
In  the  second  year  of  Hiao-tsung,  of  the  Sung  dynasty  (A.  D.  1164),  a 
synagogue  was  erected  in  Kai-fung-fu.  Those  who  attempt  to  represent 
God  by  images  or  pictures  do  but  vainly  occupy  themselves  with  empty 
forms.  Those  who  honour  and  obey  the  sacred  writings  know  the  origin 
of  all  things.  Eternal  reason  and  the  sacred  writings  mutually  sustain 
each  other  in  testifying  whence  men  derived  their  being.  All  those  who 
profess  this  religion  aim  at  the  practice  of  goodness  and  avoid  the  com- 
mission of  vice." ^ 

1  Martin,  "  A  Cycle  of  Cathay,"  p.  275. 
217 


2i8  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Dr.  Martin  writes  that  he  inquired  in  the  market-place : — 

"Are  there  among  you  any  of  the  family  of  Israel  ?  "  "I  am  one," 
responded  a  young  man,  whose  face  corroborated  his  assertion ;  and  then 
another  and  another  stepped  forth  until  I  saw  before  me  representatives 
of  six  out  of  the  seven  families  into  which  the  colony  is  divided.  They 
confessed  with  shame  and  grief  that  their  holy  and  beautiful  house  had 
been  demolished  by  their  own  hands.  It  had  for  a  long  time,  they  said, 
been  in  a  ruinous  condition ;  they  had  no  money  to  make  repairs ;  they 
had,  moreover,  lost  all  knowledge  of  the  sacred  tongue  ;  the  traditions  of 
the  fathers  were  no  longer  handed  down  and  their  ritual  worship  had 
ceased  to  be  observed.  In  this  state  of  things  they  had  yielded  to  the 
pressure  of  necessity  and  disposed  of  the  timbers  and  stones  of  that  vener- 
able edifice  to  obtain  relief  for  their  bodily  wants.  .  .  .  Their  num- 
ber they  estimated,  though  not  very  exactly,  at  from  three  to  four  hun- 
dred. .  .  .  No  bond  of  union  remains,  and  they  are  in  danger  of  be- 
ing speedily  absorbed  by  Mohammedanism  or  heathenism."  ' 

There  is  something  pathetic  about  that  forlorn  remnant  of  the 
Hebrew  race.  "A  rock  rent  from  the  side  of  Mount  Zion 
by  some  great  national  catastrophe  and  projected  into  the  cen- 
tral plain  of  China,  it  has  stood  there  while  the  centuries  rolled 
by,  sublime  in  its  antiquity  and  solitude."  ^ 

In  his  Life  of  Morrison,  Townsend  reminds  us  that  the  Chris- 
tian Church  early  realized  that  it  could  not  ignore  so  vast  a 
nation,  while  its  very  exclusiveness  attracted  bold  spirits.  As 
far  back  as  the  first  decade  of  the  sixth  century  (505  a.  d.), 
Nestorian  monks  appear  to  have  begun  a  mission  in  China. 
Romance  and  tragedy  are  suggested  by  the  few  known  facts 
regarding  that  early  movement.  Partly  impelled  by  conviction, 
partly  driven  by  persecution,  those  faithful  souls  travelled  be- 
yond the  bounds  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  rested  not  till  they 
had  made  the  formidable  journey  across  burning  deserts  and 
savage  mountains  to  the  land  of  Sinim.  That  some  measure 
of  success  attended  their  effort  is  probable.  Indeed  there  are 
hints  in  the  ancient  records  of  numerous  churches  and  of  the 

1  Martin,  "  A  Cycle  of  Cathay,"  pp.  275,  276,  277. 

2  Martin,  p.  278. 


Beginnings  of  the  Missionary  Enterprise     219 

favour  of  the  great  Emperor  Tai  Tsung  in  635.  But  however 
zealous  the  Nestorians  may  have  been  for  a  time,  it  is  evident 
that  they  were  finally  submerged  in  the  sea  of  Chinese  super- 
stition. A  quaint  monument,  discovered  in  1625  at  Hsi-an-fu, 
the  capital  of  Shen-si,  on  which  is  inscribed  an  outline  of  the 
Nestorian  effort  from  the  year  630  to  781,  is  the  only  trace  that 
remains  of  what  must  have  been  an  interesting  and  perhaps  a 
thrilling  missionary  enterprise. 

The  Roman  Catholic  effort  began  in  1293,  when  John  de 
Corvino  succeeded  in  reaching  Peking.  Though  he  was  ele- 
vated to  an  Archbishopric  and  reinforced  by  several  priests, 
this  effort,  too,  proved  a  failure  and  was  abandoned. 

Two  and  a-half  centuries  of  silence  followed,  and  then  in 
1552,  the  heroic  Francis  Xavier  set  his  face  towards  China, 
only  to  be  prostrated  by  fever  on  the  Island  of  Sancian.  As 
he  despairingly  realized  that  he  would  never  be  able  to  set  his 
foot  on  that  still  impenetrable  land,  bemoaned  :  "  Oh,  Rock, 
Rock,  when  wilt  thou  open  !  "  and  passed  away. 

But  in  1 58 1,  another  Jesuit,  the  learned  and  astute  Matteo 
Ricci,  entered  Canton  in  the  guise  of  a  Buddhist  priest.  He 
managed  to  remain,  and  twenty  years  later  he  went  to  Peking 
in  the  dress  of  a  literary  gentleman.  In  him  Roman  Cathol- 
icism gained  a  permanent  foothold  in  China,  and  although  it 
was  often  fiercely  persecuted  and  at  times  reduced  to  feeble- 
ness, it  never  became  wholly  extinct.  Gradually  it  extended 
its  influence  until  in  1672  the  priests  reported  300,000  bap- 
tized Chinese,  including  children.  In  the  nineteenth  century, 
the  growth  of  the  Roman  Church  was  rapid.  It  is  now 
strongly  entrenched  in  all  the  provinces,  and  in  most  of  the 
leading  cities  its  power  is  great.  There  are  twenty-seven  bishops 
and  about  six  hundred  foreign  priests.  The  number  of  com- 
municants is  variously  estimated,  but  in  1897  the  Vicar  Apos- 
tolic of  Che-kiang,  though  admitting  that  he  could  not  secure 
accurate  statistics,  estimated  the  Roman  Catholic  population 
at  750,000. 


220  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

It  is  not  to  the  credit  of  Protestantism  that  it  was  centuries 
behind  the  Roman  Church  in  the  attempt  to  Christianize 
China.  It  was  not  till  1807,  that  the  first  Protestant  missionary 
arrived.  January  31st,  of  that  year,  Robert  Morrison,  then  a 
youth  of  twenty-five,  sailed  alone  from  London  under  appoint- 
ment of  the  London  Missionary  Society  (Congregational).  As 
the  hostile  East  India  Company  would  not  allow  a  missionary 
on  any  of  its  ships,  Morrison  had  to  go  to  New  York  in  order 
to  secure  passage  on  an  American  vessel.  As  he  paid  his  fare 
in  the  New  York  ship  owner's  office,  the  merchant  said  with 
a  sneer  :  "  And  so,  Mr.  Morrison,  you  really  expect  that  you 
will  make  an  impression  on  the  idolatry  of  the  great  Chinese 
Empire?  "  "  No,  sir,"  was  the  ringing  reply,  "  I  expect  God 
will." 

The  ship  Trident  left  New  York  about  May  15th  and  did 
(^Y*  //  not  reach  Canton  till  September  8th.  For  two  years  Morrison 
had  to  live  and  study  in  Canton  and  the  Portuguese  settlement 
of  Macao  with  the  utmost  secrecy,  dreading  constantly  that  he 
might  be  forced  to  leave.  For  a  time,  he  never  walked  the 
streets  by  daylight  for  fear  of  attracting  attention,  but  exercised 
by  night.  His  own  countrymen  were  hostile  to  his  purpose 
and  his  Chinese  language  teachers  were  impatient  and  insolent. 
It  was  not  till  February  20,  1809,  the  date  of  his  marriage  to 
Miss  Morton,  that  his  employment  as  translator  by  the  East 
India  Company  gave  him  a  secure  residence.  Still,  however, 
he  could  not  do  open  missionary  work,  but  was  obliged  to  pre- 
sent Christianity  behind  locked  doors  to  the  few  Chinese  whom 
he  dared  to  approach.  In  these  circumstances,  he  naturally 
gave  his  energies  largely  to  language  study  and  translation, 
and  in  1810  he  had  the  joy  of  issuing  a  thousand  copies  of  a 
Chinese  version  of  the  Book  of  Acts. 

Seven  weary,  discouraging  years  passed  before  Morrison  bap- 
tized his  first  convert,  July  16,  18 14,  and  even  then  he  had  to 
administer  the  sacrament  at  a  lonely  spot  where  unfriendly  eyes 
could  not  look,  f  At  his  death  in  1834,  there  were  only  three 


Beginnings  of  the  Missionary  Enterprise     221 

Chinese  Christians  in  the  whole  Empire.  Successors  carried 
on  the  effort,  but  the  door  was  not  yet  open,  and  the  work  was 
done  against  many  obstacles  and  chiefly  in  secret  till  the  treaty 
of  Nanking,  in  1842,  opened  the  five  ports  of  Amoy,  Canton, 
Foochow,  Ningpo  and  Shanghai.  Missionaries  who  had  been 
waiting  and  watching  in  the  neighbouring  islands  promptly  en- 
tered these  cities.  Eagerly  they  looked  to  the  great  popula- 
tions in  the  interior,  but  they  were  practically  confined  to  the 
ports  named  till  1858,  when  the  treaty  of  Tien-tsin  opened 
other  cities  and  officially  conceded  the  rights  of  missionary  res- 
idence and  labour. 

The  work  now  spread  more  rapidly,  not  only  because  it  was 
conducted  in  more  centres  and  by  a  larger  force  of  mission- 
aries, but  because  it  was  carried  into  the  interior  regions  by 
Chinese  who  had  heard  the  gospel  in  the  ports. 

The  Tai-ping  Rebellion  soon  gave  startling  illustration  of  the 
perversion  of  the  new  force.  Begun  in  1850  by  an  alleged 
Christian  convert  who  claimed  to  have  a  special  revelation  from 
heaven  as  a  younger  brother  of  Christ,  it  spread  with  amazing 
rapidity  until  in  1853  it  had  overrun  almost  all  that  part  of 
China  south  of  the  Yang-tze-kiang,  had  occupied  Nanking  and 
Shanghai,  and  had  made  such  rapid  progress  northward  that  it 
threatened  the  capital  itself.  It  was  the  most  stupendous  revo- 
lution in  history,  shaking  to  its  foundations  a  vast  and  ancient 
empire,  involving  the  destruction  of  an  almost  inconceivable 
amount  of  property  and,  it  is  said,  of  the  lives  of  twenty  mil- 
lions of  human  beings. 

If  this  great  rebellion  had  been  wisely  guided,  it  would  un- 
doubtedly have  changed  the  history  of  China  and  perhaps,  by 
this  time,  of  the  greater  part  of  Asia,  for  it  proposed  to  over- 
throw idolatry,  to  unseat  the  Manchu  dynasty,  and  to  found  an 
empire  on  the  principles  of  the  Christian  religion.  So  nearly 
indeed  did  it  attain  success  that  if  it  had  not  been  opposed  by 
European  nations,  it  would  probably  have  attained  its  object. 
But  the  weight  of  their  influence  was  thrown  in  favour  of  the 


222  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Government.  The  American  Frederick  T.  Ward  and  the 
EngHsh  Charles  George  Gordon  organized  and  led  the  *'  Ever 
Victorious  Army  "  of  Chinese  troops  against  the  revolutionists. 
Most  significant  of  all,  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion  itself,  freed 
from  the  restraint  which  foreigners  might  perhaps  have  exerted, 
quickly  discarded  whatever  Christian  principles  they  had  started 
with  and  rapidly  demoralized  the  movement  at  its  centre  by 
giving  themselves  up  to  an  arrogance,  vice,  and  cruelty  which 
were  worse  than  those  of  the  government  they  sought  to  over- 
turn. Mr.  McLane,  then  United  States  Minister,  truly  re- 
ported to  Washington  :  — 

"  Whatever  may  have  been  the  hopes  of  the  enlightened  and  civilized 
nations  of  the  earth,  in  regard  to  this  movement,  it  is  now  apparent  that 
they  neither  profess  nor  apprehend  Christianity,  and  whatever  may  be  the 
true  judgment  to  form  of  their  political  power,  it  can  no  longer  be  doubted 
that  intercourse  cannot  be  established  or  maintained  on  terms  of  equal- 
ity." 

The  recapture  of  Nanking  in  1864  marked  the  final  turning 
of  the  tide,  and  in  an  incredibly  short  time  the  whole  insur- 
rection collapsed.  The  rebellion,  vast  as  it  was,  is  now  after 
all  but  an  episode  in  the  history  of  the  great  Empire.  But  the 
fact  that  any  man  on  such  a  platform  could  so  quickly  develop 
an  insurrection  of  such  appalling  proportions  significantly  sug- 
gests the  possibilities  of  change  in  China  when  new  movements 
are  rightly  directed. 

Freed  from  this  gigantic  travesty  of  its  true  character,  the 
growth  of  Christianity  in  China  became  more  rapid.  The  fol- 
lowing table  is  eloquent : 

1807 o  communicants 

1814 .  I  " 

1834 3 

1842 6 

1853 350 

1857 1,000 

1865 2,000 

1876 13.515 


« 


Beginnings  of  the  Missionary  Enterprise     223 

1SS6 28,000  communicants 

1^89  37.287 

1893 55.093 

1S97 80,682  « 

1903 112,808  " 

The  number  of  Protestant  missionaries  is  2,950,  of  whom 
1,233  are  men,  868  are  wives  and  849  are  single  women.  Of 
the  whole  number,  1,483  are  from  Great  Britain,  1,117  ^^O"^ 
America  and  350  from  continental  Europe.  Other  interesting 
statistics  are  3,500,000  adherents,  2,500  stations  and  out-sta- 
tions, 3,747  Chinese  pastors  and  helpers,  1,716  day-schools  and 
105  higher  institutions  of  learning,  twenty-three  mission  presses 
with  an  annual  output  of  107,149,738  pages,  thirty-two  period- 
icals, 124  hospitals  and  dispensaries  treating  in  a  single  year 
1,700,452  patients;  while  the  asylums  for  the  orphaned  and 
blind  and  deaf  number  thirty-two. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  Christian  missions  in  China  are 
being  conducted  upon  a  large  scale.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
overestimate  the  silent  and  yet  mighty  energy  represented  by 
such  work,  steadily  continued  through  a  long  series  of  years, 
and  representing  the  life  labours  of  thousands  of  devoted  men 
and  women  and  an  annual  expenditure  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars. 

True,  the  number  of  Christians  is  small  in  comparison  with 
the  population  of  the  Empire,  but  the  gospel  has  been  aptly 
compared  to  a  seed.  It  is  indeed  small,  but  seeds  generally 
are.  Lodged  in  a  crevice  of  a  rock,  a  seed  will  thrust  its 
thread-like  roots  into  fissures  so  tiny  that  they  are  hardly  no- 
ticeable. Yet  in  time  they  will  rend  the  rock  asunder  and 
firmly  hold  a  stately  tree.  Now  the  seed  of  the  gospel  has  been 
fairly  lodged  in  the  Chinese  Empire.  It  is  a  seed  of  indestruc- 
tible vitality  and  irresistible  transforming  power.  It  has  taken 
root,  and  it  is  destined  to  produce  mighty  changes.  It  was  not 
without  reason  that  Christianity  was  spoken  of  as  a  force  that 
"turned  the  world  upside  down,"  though  it  only  does  this 
where  the  world  was  wrong  side  up.     It  is  significant  that  the 


224  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

word  translated  "power"  in  Romans  i:  i6,  "The  gospel  is 
the  power  of  God,"  is  in  the  Greek  the  word  that  we  have 
anglicized  in  common  speech  as  "dynamite."  We  might, 
therefore,  literally  translate  Paul's  statement :  "  The  gospel  is 
the  dynamite  of  God."  That  dynamite  has  been  placed  under 
the  crust  of  China's  conservatism,  and  the  extraordinary  trans- 
formations that  are  taking  place  in  China  are,  in  part  at  least, 
the  results  of  its  tremendous  explosive  force. 

The  scope  of  this  book  does  not  permit  an  extended  account 
of  the  missionary  movement  in  China.  It  has  been  given  in 
many  volumes  that  are  easily  accessible."  '  Nearly  all  of  the 
Protestant  churches,  European  and  American,  are  repre- 
sented and  their  missionaries  are  teaching  the  young,  healing 
the  sick,  translating  the  Word  of  God,  creating  a  wholesome 
literature,  and  preaching  everywhere  and  with  a  fidelity  beyond 
all  praise  the  truths  of  the  Christian  religion.  Self-sacrificing 
devotion  and  patient  persistence  in  well-doing  are  written  on 
every  page  of  the  history  of  missions  in  China,  while  emergen- 
cies have  developed  deeds  of  magnificent  heroism.     Men  and 

1  The  reader  is  referred  to  "  The  Middle  Kingdom,"  Williams ; 
"Christian  Progress  in  China,"  Foster  (1889);  "  Story  of  the  China  In- 
land Mission,"  Guinness;  "China  and  Formosa,"  Johnston  (1897); 
Record  of  the  General  Conference  of  the  Protestant  Missionaries  of 
China  held  in  Shanghai,  1890;  Report  of  the  Ecumenical  Mis- 
sionary Conference  held  in  New  York,  1900;  "Mission  Problems 
and  Mission  Methods  in  South  China,"  Gibson ;  "  Mission  Methods  in 
Manchuria,"  Ross;  "Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom,"  McNabb; 
"  Among  the  Mongols,"  Gilmour ;  "  East  of  the  Barrier,"  Graham  ;  "  In 
the  Far  East,"  Guinness ;  "  The  Cross  and  the  Dragon,"  Henry  ;  "  From 
Far  Formosa,"  Mackay ;  "  Dawn  on  the  Hills  of  T'ang,"  Beach  ;  "  China 
and  the  Chinese,"  Nevins;  "Our  Life  in  China,"  Mrs.  Nevins;  "  Life  of 
John  Livingston  Nevins,"  Nevins ;  "  Rex  Christus,"  Smith ;  "  John 
Kenneth  Mackenzie,"  Bryson  ;  "Princely  Men  in  the  Heavenly  King- 
dom," Beach  ;  "  James  Gilmour  of  Mongolia,"  Lovett ;  "  Griffith  John," 
Robson ;  "  Robert  Morrison,"  Townsend ;  "  With  the  Tibetans  in  Tent 
and  Temple,"  Rijnhart. 


Beginnings  of  the  Missionary  Enterprise     225 

women  have  repeatedly  endured  persecution  of  the  most  viru- 
lent kindrather  than  forsake  their  converts,  and  a  number  "of 
whom  the  world  was  not  worthy"  have  laid  down  their  lives 
for  conscience'  sake.  There  are  few  places  in  all  the  world 
that  are  more  depressing  to  a  white  man  than  a  Chinese  city. 
The  dreary  monotony  and  squalor  of  its  life  are  simply  inde- 
scribable. Chefoo  is  usually  considered  one  of  the  most  at- 
tractive cities  in  China,  and  the  missionaries  who  reside  there 
are  regarded  as  fortunate  above  their  brethren.  But  even  a 
brief  stay  will  convince  the  most  sceptical  that  nothing  but  the 
strongest  considerations  of  duty  could  induce  one  who  has 
freedom  of  choice  to  remain  any  longer  than  is  absolutely 
necessary.  Yet  for  forty-two  years,  missionaries  have  lived 
and  toiled  amid  these  unattractive  surroundings,  their  houses 
on  Temple  Hill  in  the  midst  of  the  innumerable  graves  which 
occupy  almost  every  possible  space  not  actually  covered  by  the 
mission  buildings  and  grounds.  But  steadily  the  missionaries 
have  toiled  on,  with  faith  and  courage  and  love,  and  they  are 
slowly  but  surely  effecting  marked  changes.  One  by  one,  the 
Chinese  are  being  led  to  loftier  views  of  life  and  while  the  old 
city  still  continues  to  live  in  the  ancient  way,  hundreds  of 
Chinese  families,  amid  the  numerous  population  outside  of  the 
walls  and  in  the  outlying  villages,  have  begun  to  conform 
themselves  to  the  new  and  higher  conditions  of  life  represented 
by  the  Christian  missionaries. 

ti  Several  schools,  a  handsome  church,  a  hospital,  the  only 
mstitution  for  deaf  mutes  in  China  and  a  wide-reaching  itin- 
erating work,  are  features  of  the  mission  enterprise  in  Chefoo. 
The  visitor  will  be  particularly  interested  in  Dr.  Hunter  Cor- 
bett's  street  chapel  and  museum.  The  building  is  situated 
opposite  the  Chinese  iheatre  and  is  well  adapted  to  its  purpose. 
Dr.  Corbett  and  a  helper  stand  at  the  door  and  invite  pass- 
ers-by, while  a  blind  boy  plays  on  a  baby  organ  and  sings. 
The  chapel,  which  holds  about  sixty  or  seventy,  is  soon  filled. 
Dr.  Corbett  preaches  to  the  people  for  half  an  hour  and  then  ad- 


226  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

mits  them  to  the  museum  which  occupies  several  rooms  in  the 
rear.  It  is  a  wonderful  place  to  the  Chinese  who  never  weary 
of  watching  the  stuffed  tiger,  the  model  railway  and  the  scores 
of  interesting  objects  and  specimens  that  Dr.  Corbett  has  col- 
lected from  various  lands.  Then  the  people  leave  by  a  door 
opening  on  the  back  street,  another  service  being  held  with 
them  in  the  last  room.  Several  audiences  a  day  are  thus 
handled.  It  is  hard  work,  for  the  men  as  a  rule  are  from  many 
outlying  villages,  unaccustomed  to  listening  and  knowing  noth- 
ing of  Christianity.  But  Dr.  Corbett  speaks  with  such  anima- 
tion and  eloquence  that  not  an  eye  is  taken  from  him.  Few 
are  converted  in  the  chapel,  but  friendships  are  gained,  doors 
of  opportunity  opened,  tracts  distributed,  men  led  to  think, 
and  on  country  tours  Dr.  Corbett  invariably  meets  people  who 
have  been  to  the  museum  and  who  cordially  welcome  him  to 
their  homes.  He  declares  that  after  thirty  years'  experience, 
he  thoroughly  believes  in  such  work  when  followed  up  by 
faithful  itineration.  Seventy-two  thousand  attended  the  chapel 
and  museum  in  the  year  1900  in  spite  of  the  Boxer  trou- 
bles. The  chapel  is  open  every  day,  except  that  the  museum 
is  closed  on  Sundays,  and  the  attendance  is  now  larger  than 
ever. 

After  dinner,  we  strolled  down  to  Dr.  Nevius'  famous  or- 
chard. It  is  a  beautiful  spot.  Here  the  great  missionary 
found  his  recreation  after  his  arduous  labours.  Yet  even  in  his 
hours  of  rest,  he  was  eminently  practical.  Seeing  that  the 
Chinese  had  very  little  good  fruit  and  believing  that  he  might 
show  them  how  to  secure  it,  he  brought  from  America  seeds 
and  cuttings,  carefully  cultivated  them  and,  when  they  were 
grown,  freely  distributed  the  new  seeds  and  cuttings  to  the 
Chinese,  explaining  to  them  the  methods  of  cultivation.  To- 
day, as  the  result  of  his  forethought  and  generosity,  several 
foreign  fruits  have  become  common  throughout  North  China. 
But  the  orchard  is  deteriorating  as  the  Chinese  will  not  prune 
the  trees.     They  are  so  greedy  for  returns  that  they  do  not  like 


Beginnings  of  the  Missionary  Enterprise     227 

to  diminish  the  number  of  apples  or  plums  in  the  interest  of 
quality. 

At  sunset,  I  made  a  pilgrimage  with  Mrs.  Nevius  to  the 
cemetery,  where,  after  forty  years  of  herculean  toil,  the  mighty 
missionary  sleeps.  We  sat  for  a  long  time  beside  the  grave,  and 
the  aged  widow,  speaking  of  her  own  end,  which  she  appeared 
to  feel  could  not  be  far  distant,  said  that  she  wished  to  be  buried 
beside  her  husband  and  that  for  this  reason  she  did  not  want 
to  go  to  the  United  States,  preferring  to  remain  in  Chefoo  until 
her  summons  came. 

The  scene  was  very  beautiful  as  the  sun  set  and  the  moon 
rose  above  the  quiet  sea.  Standing  beside  the  grave  of  the 
honoured  dead  and  under  the  solemn  pines,  the  traveller  gains 
a  new  sense  of  the  beneficence  and  dignity  of  the  missionary 
force  that  is  operating  through  such  consecrated  lives  of  the 
living  and  the  dead. 

./ 


XIX 

MISSIONARIES  AND  NATIVE  LAWSUITS 

N  considering  the  effects  of  the  operation  of  this  mission- 
ary force,  we  are  at  once  confronted  by  the  complaint  of 
many  Chinese  that  missionaries  interfere  on  behalf  of  their 
converts  in  lawsuits.  This  complaint  has  been  taken  up  and 
circulated  by  foreign  critics  until  it  has  become  one  of  the  most 
formidable  of  the  objections  to  missionary  work.  The  difficulty 
will  be  understood  when  we  remember  that,  though  the  Chinese 
are  not  a  warlike  people,  they  are  litigious  to  an  extraordinary 
degree.  The  struggle  for  existence  in  such  a  densely  populated 
country  often  results  in  real  or  fancied  entanglements  of  rights. 
So  the  Chinese  are  forever  disputing  about  something,  and  the 
magistrates  and  village  headmen  are  beset  by  clamorous  hordes 
who  demand  a  settlement  of  their  alleged  grievances.  Natu- 
rally the  Chinese  Christians  do  not  at  once  outgrow  this  national 
disposition.  Whether  they  do  or  not,  their  profession  of  Chris- 
tianity makes  them  an  easy  mark  for  the  greedy  and  envious. 
Jealousy  and  dislike  of  the  native  who  abandons  the  faith  of  his 
fathers  and  espouses  "  the  foreigner's  religion "  frequently 
hale  him  into  court  on  trumped-up  charges  and  the  notorious 
prejudice  and  corruption  of  the  average  magistrate  often 
result  in  grievous  persecution.  The  terrified  Christian  natu- 
rally implores  the  missionary  to  save  him.  It  is  hard  to 
resist  such  an  appeal.  But  the  defendant  is  not  always  so 
innocent  as  he  appears  to  be,  and  whether  innocent  or  guilty, 
the  interference  of  the  foreigner  irritates  both  magistrate 
and  prosecutor,  while  it  not  infrequently  arouses  the  re- 
sentment of  the  whole  community  by  giving  the  idea  that 
the   Christians   are  a  privileged  class  who  are  not  amenable 

228 


I— I   hi* 

JO 
O 


W  So 

"^  o 

X  ° 

d  ° 

O 


Missionaries  and  Native  Lawsuits         229 

to  the  ordinary  laws  of  the  land.  When,  as  sometmies  hap- 
pens, the  Christians  themselves  get  that  idea  and  presume  upon 
it,  the  difficulty  becomes  acute.  Speaking  of  the  Chinese 
talent  for  indirection,  the  Rev,  Dr.  Arthur  H.  Smith 
says : — 

"  It  is  this  which  makes  it  so  difficult  for  the  most  conscientious  and 
discreet  missionary  to  be  quite  sure  that  he  is  in  possession  of  all  the 
needed  data  in  any  given  case.  The  difficulty  in  getting  at  the  botton 
facts  frequently  is  that  there  are  no  facts  available,  and,  as  the  pilots  say, 
'  no  bottom.'  Every  Protestant  missionary  is  anxious  to  have  his  flock  of 
Christians  such  as  fear  God  and  work  righteousness,  but  in  the  effort  to 
compass  this  end  he  not  infrequently  finds  that  when  endeavouring  to  in- 
vestigate the  '  facts '  in  any  case  he  is  chasing  a  school  of  cuttlefish 
through  seas  of  ink."  ' 

An  illustration  of  this  occurred  during  my  visit  in  Ichou-fu. 
A  magistrate  who  needed  some  wheelbarrows  sent  out  his  men 
to  impress  them.  The  rule  in  such  cases  is  that  only  empty 
barrows  can  be  seized.  But  the  yamen  underlings  found  the 
father  of  a  mission  helper  with  loaded  barrows  at  an  inn,  stole 
his  goods  and  forced  him  to  pay  them  a  sum  of  money  for  the 
privilege  of  keeping  his  barrows.  The  helper  complained  and 
Dr.  C.  F.  Johnson  yielded  only  so  far  as  to  write  a  guarded 
letter  to  the  magistrate  simply  stating  his  confidence  that  if  the 
magistrate  found  that  injustice  had  been  done,  he  would 
remedy  it.  But  that  letter  brought  the  missionary  into  the 
case  and  he  found  himself  forced  to  see  it  through  or  "lose 
face"  with  the  Chinese  Christians  and  especially  the  helper 
who  was  the  son  of  the  man  robbed.  He  soon  discovered, 
moreover,  that  the  wronged  man  was  telling  contradictory 
stories  about  the  value  of  goods  stolen  and  the  amount  of 
money  he  had  to  pay  to  save  his  barrows.  The  situation 
speedily  became  embarrassing  and  the  sorely-tried  missionary, 
though  he  had  acted  from  the  best  of  motives  and  in  the  most 
conservative  way,  vowed  that  he  would  never  interfere  again 

1  "  Rex  Christus,"  pp.  103,  107. 


230  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

in  such  disputes,  as  irritation  and  harm  were  ahnost  certain  to 
result. 

I  asked  Sir  Robert  Hart  whether  in  his  opinion  a  missionary 
should  seek  to  obtain  justice  for  a  persecuted  man  or  should 
remain  silent  ?     He  replied  : — 

"  Intervention  in  matters  litigated  ought  to  be  absolutely  eschewed.  Let 
the  missionary  content  himself  with  making  his  disciples  good  men  and 
good  citizens,  and  let  him  leave  it  to  the  duly  authorized  officials  to  inter- 
pret and  apply  the  law  and  administer  their  affairs  in  their  own  way. 
Individual  Christianity  has  as  many  shades  and  degrees  as  men's  faces. 
There  are  converts  and  converts,  but  even  the  most  godly  of  them  may 
give  his  neighbour  just  reason  to  take  offense,  and  the  most  saintly  among 
them  may  get  involved  in  the  meshes  of  the  law.  In  such  cases  let  the 
missionary  stand  aloof  There  is,  too,  such  a  thing  as  hypocrisy ;  much 
better  let  the  schemer  get  his  deserts  than  hurt  the  church's  character  by 
following  sentiment  into  interference.  You  ask  what  is  to  be  done  when 
there  is  persecution  to  be  dealt  with  ?  First  of  all,  I  would  advise  the 
individual  or  the  community  to  live  it  down,  and,  as  a  last  resort,  report 
the  fact  with  appropriate  detail  and  proof  to  the  Legation  in  Peking  for 
the  assistance  and  advice  of  the  minister.  '  Watch  thou  in  all  things, 
endure  afflictions,  do  the  work  of  an  evangelist,  make  full  proof  of  thy 
ministry.' " 

It  is  customary  for  the  friends  of  Protestant  missionaries  to 
answer  the  critic's  charge  of  interference  in  native  lawsuits  by 
stating  that  it  does  not  justly  lie  against  them,  but  only  against 
the  Roman  Catholics,  the  rule  of  the  Protestant  missionaries 
being  to  avoid  such  interference  save  in  rare  and  extreme  cases. 
Mr.  Alexander  Michie,  however,  declares  that  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries are  not  entitled  to  such  exemption,  and  that,  while 
they  may  not  interfere  so  frequently  as  the  Catholics,  they 
nevertheless  interfere  often  enough  to  bring  them  under  the 
same  condemnation.' 

There  are  undoubtedly  cases  of  imprudence,  but  after  dili- 
gent inquiry,  I  am  persuaded  that  the  Protestant  missionaries 
as  a  class  are  keenly  alive  to  the  risks  of  interference  in  native 
'Address  in  Shanghai,  1901. 


Missionaries  and  Native  Lawsuits         231 

lawsuits  and  that  they  are  increasingly  careful  in  this  respect. 
They  feel  with  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Garritt  of  Hangchow  that  "the 
most  important  form  which  prejudice  has  taken  of  late  is  the 
belief  that  foreigners  aid  or  at  least  countenance  their  con- 
verts in  the  carrying  of  lawsuits  through  the  yamens,  or  in  the 
business  of  private  settlement  of  disputes,  and  that  if  we  can 
only  practically  demonstrate  to  the  public  that  we  are  not  in 
that  business,  we  shall  have  overcome  one  very  serious  obstacle 
to  our  work." 

"The  policy  of  the  Chinese  Government  during  the  past 
few  years  has  been  to  avoid  trouble  by  letting  the  foreigner 
have  his  own  way  whenever  possible.  More  than  once  the 
Chinese  official  has  said  in  substance  to  non-Christian  litigants  : 
*  You  are  right  and  your  Christian  accusers  are  wrong ;  but  if 
I  decide  in  your  favour  the  foreigner  will  appeal  the  case  to  the 
Governor  or  to  the  Peking  foreign  ofifice  and  I  shall  suffer.' 
Such  things  are  charged,  justly  or  unjustly,  to  the  account  of 
both  Protestant  and  Romanist."  ' 

A  broad  induction  as  to  the  facts  has  been  made  by  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Paul  D.  Bergen,  President  of  Shantung  Protestant 
University.  He  wrote  to  a  large  number  of  missionaries  rep- 
resenting all  Protestant  denominations  as  to  their  practice  and 
convictions  regarding  this  subject.  Seventy-three  answered 
and  Dr.  Bergen  tabulated  their  replies.  As  to  the  results  of 
the  concrete  cases  of  intervention  cited,  fifty-three  are  reported 
to  have  been  beneficial,  twenty-six  are  characterized  as  doubt- 
ful, four  as  mixed  and  sixty-seven  as  bad.  This  leaves  the 
remaining  cases  "suspended  in  the  air,"  and  Dr.  Bergen  con- 
jectures that  "perhaps  the  missionary  felt  in  such  a  confused 
mental  state  at  their  conclusion,  that  he  was  quite  unable  to 
work  out  the  complicated  equation  of  their  results." 

"But  surely  the  result  that  only  fifty-three  cases  are  reported 
to  have  been  of  unmistakable  benefit,  while  sixty-seven  are  set 
down  as  resulting  in  evil,  ought  to  give  us  thought.  In  short, 
1  The  Rev.  Dr.  L.  J.  Davies,  Tsing-tau. 


232  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

in  the  yamen  intercession  in  behalf  of  prosecuted  Christians, 
it  is  the  deliberate  opinion  of  seventy-three  missionaries  that,  as 
a  matter  of  personal  experience,  sixty-seven  cases  have  wrought 
only  evil,  while  only  fifty-three  have  been  productive  of  good. 
The  balance  is  on  the  wrong  side.  We  must  decide,  in  view 
of  these  replies,  that  there  exists  in  general  rather  a  pessimistic 
opinion  as  to  the  advantages  of  applying  to  the  yamen  in  behalf 
of  Christians." 

Summing  up  briefly  the  results  of  this  inquiry,  we  note  the 
following  points,  which  will  embody  the  views  of  a  very  large 
majority  of  the  Protestant  missionaries  of  experience  in  the 
Empire : — 

"  First, — That  it  is  highly  desirable  to  keep  church  troubles  out  of  the 
yamen,  but  that  there  are  times  when  we  cannot  do  so  without  violating 
our  sense  of  justice  and  our  sense  of  duty  towards  an  injured  brother. 

"  Second, — Official  assistance  is  to  be  sought  in  such  troubles  only  when 
all  other  means  of  relief  have  been  tried  in  vain.  Always  seek  to  settle 
these  difficulties  out  of  court. 

"  Third, — When  official  assistance  is  requested,  our  bearing  should  be 
friendly  and  courteous  in  the  spirit,  at  least  in  the  first  instance,  of  asking 
a  favour  of  the  official,  rather  than  demanding  a  right.  .  .  .  We 
should  be  extremely  careful  about  trying  to  bring  pressure  to  bear  on  an 
official. 

"  Fourth, — In  the  presence  of  the  native  Christian,  and  especially  of 
those  chiefly  concerned,  as  well  as  in  our  own  closets,  we  should  cherish 
a  deep  sense  of  our  absolute  dependence  on  heavenly  rather  than  on 
earthly  protection,  and  remind  the  Christians  that,  as  Dr.  Taylor  has  so 
tersely  put  it,  their  duty  is  '  to  do  good,  suffer  for  it  and  take  it  patiently.' 

"  Fifth, — Only  in  grave  cases  should  matters  be  pushed  to  the  point  of 
controversy  or  formal  appeal. 

"  Sixth, — Christians  and  evangelists  should  be  solemnly  warned  against 
betraying  an  arrogant  spirit  upon  the  successful  termination  of  any 
trouble. 

"  Seventh, — Previous  to  the  carrying  of  a  case  before  the  official,  let  the 
missionary  be  sure  of  his  facts.  Each  case  should  be  patiently,  thoroughly 
and  firmly  examined.  Receive  individual  testimony  with  judicious  re- 
serve. Be  not  easily  blinded  by  appeals  to  the  emotions.  Be  especially 
ready  to  receive  any  one  from  the  opposition,  and  give  his  words  due 


Missionaries  and  Native  Lawsuits         233 

weight.  Do  not  be  too  exclusively  influenced  by  the  judgment  of  any  one 
man,  however  trusted. 

"  Eighth, — In  the  course  of  negotiation  beware  of  insisting  on  monetary 
compensation  for  the  injured  Christian.  In  greatly  aggravated  cases  this 
may  occasionally  be  unavoidable.  But  should  it  be  made  a  condition  of 
settlement,  see  to  it  that  the  damages  are  under,  rather  than  over,  what 
might  have  been  demanded.  It  is  almost  sure  to  cause  subsequent 
trouble,  both  within  and  without,  if  a  Christian  receives  money  under 
such  circumstances. 

"  Ninth, — When  unhappily  involved  in  a  persecution  case  with  the  offi- 
cial, we  should  remember  that  we  are  not  lawyers,  and  therefore  make  no 
stand  on  legal  technicalities,  nor  allow  ourselves  to  take  a  threatening  at- 
titude, although  we  may  be  subjected  to  provocation;  we  should  be  pa- 
tient, dignified  and  strong  in  the  truth,  making  it  clear  to  the  official  that 
this  is  all  that  we  seek  in  order  that  the  ends  of  justice  may  be  satisfied. 

"  Tenth, — It  would  be  well  on  every  fitting  occasion  to  exhort  those  un- 
der our  care  to  avoid  frequenting  yamens  or  cultivating  intimacy  with 
their  inhabitants,  unless,  indeed,  we  feel  assured  that  their  motive  is  the 
same  as  that  animating  our  Lord  when  He  mingled  with  publicans  and 
sinners," 

A  widely  representative  conference  of  Protestant  missionaries 
issued  in  1903  the  following  manifesto  and  sent  copies  in 
Chinese  to  all  officials  throughout  the  Empire : 

"  Chinese  Christians,  though  church-members,  remain  in  every  respect 
Chinese  citizens,  and  are  subject  to  the  properly  constituted  Chinese  au- 
thorities. The  sacred  Scriptures  and  the  doctrines  of  the  church  teach 
obedience  to  all  lawful  authority  and  exhort  to  good  citizenship  ;  and  these 
doctrines  are  preached  in  all  Protestant  churches.  The  relation  of  a  mis- 
sionary to  his  converts  is  thus  that  of  a  teacher  to  his  disciples,  and  he 
does  not  desire  to  arrogate  to  himself  the  position  or  power  of  a  mag- 
istrate. 

"  Unfortunately,  it  sometimes  happens  that  unworthy  men,  by  making  in- 
sincere professions,  enter  the  church  and  seek  to  use  this  connection  to 
interfere  with  the  ordinary  course  of  law  in  China.  We  all  agree  that 
such  conduct  is  entirely  reprehensible,  and  we  desire  it  to  be  known  that 
we  give  no  support  to  this  unwarrantable  practice. 

"  On  this  account  we  desire  to  state  that  for  the  information  of  all  that : 
(rt)  The  Protestant  Church  does  not  wish  to  interfere  in  law  cases.  All 
cases  between  Christians  and  non-Christians  must  be  settled  in  the  courts 


234  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

in  the  ordinary  way.  Officials  are  called  upon  to  administer  fearlessly  and 
impartially  justice  to  all  within  their  jurisdiction.  (i>)  Native  Christians 
are  strictly  forbidden  to  use  the  name  of  the  church  or  its  officers  in  the 
hope  of  strengthening  their  positions  when  they  appear  before  magistrates. 
The  native  pastors  and  preachers  are  appointed  for  teaching  and  exhorta- 
tion, and  are  chosen  because  of  their  worthy  character  to  carry  on  this 
work.  To  prevent  abuses  in  the  future,  all  officials  are  respectfully  re- 
quested to  report  to  the  missionary  every  case  in  which  letters  or  cards  us- 
ing the  name  of  the  church  or  any  of  its  officers  are  brought  into  court. 
Then  proper  inquiry  will  be  made  and  the  truth  become  clear," 

The  policy  of  the  British  Government  on  this  subject  was 
clearly  expressed  by  Earl  Granville  in  his  note  of  August  21, 
1 87 1,  to  the  British  Minister  at  Peking  : 

"  The  policy  and  practice  of  the  Government  of  Great  Britain  have  been 
unmistakable.  They  have  uniformly  declared,  and  now  repeat,  that  they 
do  not  claim  to  afford  any  species  of  protection  to  Chinese  Christians 
which  may  be  construed  as  withdrawing  them  from  their  native  alle- 
giance, nor  do  they  desire  to  secure  to  British  missionaries  any  privileges 
or  immunities  beyond  those  granted  by  treaty  to  other  British  subjects. 
The  Bishop  of  Victoria  was  requested  to  intimate  this  to  the  Protestant 
missionary  societies  in  the  letter  addressed  to  him  by  Mr.  Hammond  by 
the  Earl  of  Clarendon's  direction  on  the  13th  of  November,  1869,  and  to 
point  out  that  they  would  '  do  well  to  warn  converts  that  although  the 
Chinese  Government  may  be  bound  by  treaty  not  to  persecute,  on  ac- 
count of  their  conversion,  Chinese  subjects  who  may  embrace  Christianity, 
there  is  no  provision  in  the  treaty  by  which  a  claim  can  be  made  on  be- 
half of  converts  for  exemption  from  the  obligations  of  their  natural  alle- 
giance, and  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  local  authorities.  Under  the  creed 
of  their  adoption,  as  under  that  of  their  birth,  Chinese  converts  to  Chris- 
tianity still  owe  obedience  to  the  law  of  China,  and  if  they  assume  to  set 
themselves  above  those  laws,  in  reliance  upon  foreign  protection,  they 
must  take  the  consequence  of  their  own  indiscretion,  for  no  British  author- 
ity, at  all  events,  can  interfere  to  save  them.' " 

The  policy  of  the  United  States  Government  was  stated  with 
equal  clearness  in  a  note  of  the  Hon.  Frederick  F.  Low, 
United  States  Minister  at  Peking,  to  the  Tsung-li  Yamen,  dated 
March  20,|i87i  : 


Missionaries  and  Native   Lawsuits         235 

"  The  Government  of  the  United  States,  while  it  claims  to  exercise,  un- 
der and  by  virtue  of  the  stipulations  of  treaty,  the  exclusive  right  of  judg- 
ing of  the  wrongful  acts  of  its  citizens  resident  in  China,  and  of  punishing 
them  when  found  guilty  according  to  its  own  laws,  does  not  assume  to 
claim  or  exercise  any  authority  or  control  over  the  natives  of  China.  This 
rule  applies  equally  to  merchants  and  missionaries,  and,  so  far  as  I  know, 
all  foreign  Governments  having  treaties  with  China  adhere  strictly  to  this 
rule.  In  case,  however,  missionaries  see  that  native  Christians  are  being 
persecuted  by  the  local  officials  on  account  of  their  religious  opinions,  in 
violation  of  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  twenty-ninth  article  of  the  treaty 
between  the  United  States  and  China,  it  would  be  proper,  and  entirely  in 
accordance  with  the  principles  of  humanity  and  the  teachings  of  their  re- 
ligion, to  make  respectful  representation  of  the  facts  in  such  cases  to  the 
local  authorities  direct,  or  through  their  diplomatic  representative  to  the 
foreign  office ;  for  it  cannot  be  presumed  that  the  Imperial  Government 
would  sanction  any  violation  of  treaty  engagement,  or  that  the  local  of- 
ficials would  allow  persecutions  for  opinion's  sake,  when  once  the  facts  are 
made  known  to  them.  In  doing  this  the  missionaries  should  conform  to 
Chinese  custom  and  etiquette,  so  far  as  it  can  be  done  without  assuming 
an  attitude  that  would  be  humiliating  and  degrading  to  themselves." 

The  question  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  and  delicate  of  all 
the  questions  with  which  the  missionary  must  deal.  On  the 
one  hand,  every  impulse  of  justice  and  humanity  prompts  him 
to  befriend  a  good  man  who  is  being  persecuted  for  right- 
eousness' sake.  But  on  the  other  hand,  sore  experience  has 
taught  him  the  necessity  of  caution.  The  pressure  upon  him  is 
so  frequent  and  trying  that  it  becomes  the  bete  noire  of  his  life. 
The  outsider  may  wisely  hesitate  before  he  adds  to  that  pres- 
sure. The  citations  that  have  been  given  show  that  the  mis- 
sionaries themselves  understand  the  question  quite  as  well  as 
any  one  else  and  that  they  are  competent  to  deal  with  it. 


XX 

MISSIONARIES  AND  THEIR  OWN  GOVERNMENTS 


T 


"^HE  relation  of  the  missionary  to  the  consular  and 
diplomatic  representatives  of  his  own  government  is 
another  topic  of  perennial  criticism.  Some  European 
Governments  have  persistently  and  notoriously  sought  to  ad- 
vance their  national  interest  through  their  missionaries.  France 
and  Russia  have  been  particularly  active  in  this  way,  the 
former  claiming  large  rights  by  virtue  of  its  position  as  "the 
protector  of  Catholic  missions."  The  result  is  that  the 
average  Chinese  official  regards  all  missionaries  as  political 
agents  who  are  to  be  watched  and  feared.  Dr.  L.  J.  Davies,  a 
Presbyterian  missionary,  says  that  he  has  been  repeatedly  asked 
his  rank  as  "an  American  official,"  whether  he  "reported  in 
person"  to  his  "emperor"  on  his  return  to  his  native  land, 
how  much  salary  his  government  allowed  him,  and  many 
other  questions  the  import  of  which  was  manifest. 

The  typical  consul  and  minister,  moreover,  find  that  no 
small  part  of  their  business  relates  to  matters  that  are  brought  to 
their  attention  by  missionaries.  Sometimes  they  manifest  impa- 
tience on  this  account.  One  consul  profanely  complained  to 
me  that  three- fourths  of  his  business  related  to  the  missionary 
question.  He  forgot,  however,  that  nine-tenths  of  the  nationals 
under  his  jurisdiction  were  missionaries,  so  that  in  proportion  to 
their  numbers,  the  missionaries  gave  him  less  trouble  than  the 
non-missionary  Americans.  In  answer  to  an  inquiry  by  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Paul  D.  Bergen,  of  the  Presbyterian  Mission,  seventy- 
three  missionaries,  of  from  five  to  thirty  years'  experience,  and 
representing  most  of  the  Protestant  boards,  reported  a  total  of 
only  fifty-two   applications  through    consul  or  minister.     The 

236 


Missionaries  and  Their  Own  Governments  237 

Hon.  John  Barrett,  formerly  Minister  of  the  United  States  to 
Siam,  writes:  "Let  us  be  fair  in  judging  the  missionaries. 
Let  the  complaining  merchant,  traveller  or  clubman  take  the 
beam  from  his  own  eye  before  he  demands  that  the  mote  be 
taken  from  the  missionary's  eye.  In  my  diplomatic  experience 
in  Siam,  150  missionaries  gave  me  less  trouble  in  five  years 
than  fifteen  merchants  gave  me  in  five  months." 

Doubtless  some  diplomats  would  be  glad  to  have  the  mis- 
sionaries expatriate  themselves.  In  the  United  States  Senate 
the  Hon.  John  Sherman  is  reported  to  have  said  that  "  if  our 
citizens  go  to  a  far-distant  country,  semi-civilized  and  bitterly 
opposed  to  their  movements,  we  cannot  follow  them  there  and 
protect  them.  They  ought  to  come  home."  Is,  then,  the 
missionary's  business  less  legitimate  than  the  trader's?  Is  a 
man  entitled  to  the  protection  of  his  country  if  he  goes  to  the 
Orient  to  sell  whiskey  and  rifles,  but  does  he  forfeit  that  protec- 
tion if  he  goes  there  to  preach  the  gospel  of  temperance  and 
peace  ? 

Critics  may  be  reminded  that  missionaries  are  American  citi- 
zens; that  when  gamblers  and  drunkards  and  adventurers  and 
distillery  agents  in  China  claim  the  rights  of  citizenship,  the 
missionary  does  not  forfeit  his  rights  by  a  residence  in  China 
for  the  purpose  of  teaching  the  young,  healing  the  sick,  dis- 
tributing the  Bible  and  preaching  the  gospel  of  Christ,  particu- 
larly when  treaties  expressly  guarantee  him  protection  in  the 
exercise  of  these  very  privileges.  It  is  odd  to  find  some  peo- 
ple insisting  that  a  dissolute  trader  should  be  allowed  to  go 
wherever  he  pleases  and  raising  a  tremendous  hubbub  if  a  hair 
of  his  head  is  injured,  while  at  the  same  time  they  appear  to 
deem  it  an  unwarranted  thing  for  a  decent  man  to  go  to  China 
on  a  mission  of  peace  and  good-will. 

While  the  individual  missionary  is,  of  course,  free  to 
renounce  his  claim  to  the  protection  of  home  citizenship, 
such  renunciation  is  neither  necessary  nor  expedient.  There 
is  not  the  slightest  probability  that  our  Government  will  require 


238 


New  Forces  in  Old  China 


it,  and  if  it  should,  the  public  sentiment  of  the  United  States 
would  not  tolerate  such  an  order  for  a  week.  No  self-respect- 
ing nation  can  expatriate  its  citizens  who  go  abroad  to  do  good. 
The  policy  of  the  United  States  was  indicated  in  the  note  of 
the  Hon.  J.  C.  B.  Davis,  acting  Secretary  of  State,  to  the 
United  States  Minister  at  Peking,  October  19,  1871. 

"  The  rights  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  in  China  are  well  defined 
by  treaty.  So  long  as  they  attend  peaceably  to  their  affairs  they  are  to 
be  placed  on  a  common  footing  of  amity  and  good-will  with  subjects  of 
China,  and  are  to  receive  and  enjoy  for  themselves,  and  everything  apper- 
taining to  them,  protection  and  defense  from  all  insults  and  injuries. 
They  have  the  right  to  reside  at  any  of  the  ports  open  to  foreign  com- 
merce, to  rent  houses  and  places  of  business,  or  to  build  such  upon  sites 
which  they  have  the  right  to  hire.  They  have  secured  to  them  the  right 
to  build  churches  and  cemeteries,  and  they  may  teach  or  worship  in  those 
churches  without  being  harassed,  persecuted,  interfered  with,  or  molested. 
These  are  some  of  the  rights  which  are  expressly  and  in  terms  granted  to 
the  United  States,  for  their  citizens,  by  the  Treaty  of  1858.  If  I  rightly 
apprehend  the  spirit  of  the  note  of  the  Foreign  Office,  and  of  the  regula- 
tions which  accompany  it,  there  is,  to  state  it  in  the  least  objectionable 
form,  an  apprehension  in  the  yamen  that  it  may  become  necessary  to  cur- 
tail some  of  these  rights,  in  consequence  of  the  alleged  conduct  of  French 
missionaries.  This  idea  cannot  be  entertained  for  one  moment  by  the 
United  States." 

This  position  was  given  new  emphasis  by  the  note  sent  by 
Secretary  of  State  John  Hay  to  the  Hon.  Horace  Porter,  United 
States  Ambassador  to  France,  in  response  to  a  communication 
from  the  American  Chamber  of  Commerce  in  Paris  in  1903. 
In  this  note  Mr.  Hay  said  : 

"  The  Government  holds  that  every  citizen  sojourning  or  travelling 
abroad  in  pursuit  of  his  lawful  affairs  is  entitled  to  a  passport,  and  the  du- 
ration of  such  sojourn  the  department  does  not  arrogate  to  itself  the  right 
to  limit  or  prescribe." 

The  governments  of  continental  Europe  have  repeatedly 
shown  themselves   quick  to  resent  an  infringement  upon  the 


Missionaries  and  Their  Own  Governments  239 

treaty  rights  of  their  subjects  who  are  in  China  as  missionaries. 
The  Hon.  Thomas  Francis  Wade,  British  Minister  at  Peking, 
wrote  to  Minister  Wen  Hsiang  in  June,  1871  : — "The  British 
Government  draws  no  distinction  between  the  missionaries  and 
any  other  of  its  non-official  subjects."  This  sentiment  was  em- 
phatically reiterated  by  Earl  Granville  in  a  note  from  the  for- 
eign office  in  London  to  Mr.  Wade  dated  August  21,  1871  : 

"  Her  Majesty's  Government  cannot  allow  the  claim  that  the  mission- 
aries residing  in  China  must  conform  to  the  laws  and  customs  of  China  to 
pass  unchallenged.  It  is  the  duty  of  a  missionary,  as  of  every  other  British 
subject,  to  avoid  giving  offense  as  far  as  possible  to  the  Chinese  authori- 
ties or  people,  but  he  does  not  forfeit  the  rights  to  which  he  is  entitled  un- 
der the  treaty  as  a  British  subject  because  of  his  missionary  character." 

But  while  this  is  the  only  possible  policy  for  a  government, 
it  is  surely  reasonable  to  expect  that  the  persons  concerned  will 
exercise  moderation  and  prudence  in  their  demands.  The 
China  Island  Mission  does  not  permit  its  missionaries  to  appeal 
to  their  Government  officials  without  special  permission  from 
headquarters.  Many  missionaries  of  other  societies  would 
probably  resent  such  a  limitation  of  their  liberty  as  citizens. 
But  as  the  act  of  the  individual  often  involves  others,  it  might 
be  well  to  make  the  approval  of  the  station  necessary,  and, 
wherever  practicable,  of  the  mission.  Nine-tenths  of  the 
missionaries  do  not  and  will  not  unnecessarily  write  or 
telegraph  for  the  intervention  of  minister  or  consul.  But  the 
tenth  man  may  be  benefited  by  the  counsel  of  his  colleagues 
who  know  or  who  may  be  easily  acquainted  with  the  facts. 
The  American  Presbyterian  Board  in  a  formal  action  has  ex- 
pressed the  wise  judgment  that  "appeals  to  the  secular  arm 
should  always  and  everywhere  be  as  few  as  possible."  It  is 
not  in  the  civil  or  military  power  of  a  country  to  give  the 
missionary  success.  In  the  crude  condition  of  heathen 
society,  the  temptation  is  sometimes  strong  to  appeal  for  aid  to 
"  the  secular  arm  "  of  the  home  government.     Occasions  may 


240  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

possibly  arise  in  which  it  will  be  necessary  to  insist  upon  rights. 
Nevertheless,  as  a  rule,  it  will  be  well  to  remember  that  "the 
weapons  of  our  warfare  are  not  carnal  but  mighty  through 
God,"  and  that  "  the  servant  of  the  Lord  must  not  strive,  but 
be  gentle  unto  all  men."  The  argument  of  the  sword  is 
Mohammedan,  not  Christian.  The  veteran  Rev.  J.  Hudson 
Taylor  holds  that  in  the  long  run  appeals  to  home  governments 
do  nothing  but  harm.  He  says  he  has  known  of  many  riots 
that  have  never  been  reported  and  of  much  suffering  endured 
in  silence  which  have  "fallen  out  rather  to  the  furtherance  of 
the  gospel,"  and  that  "if  we  leave  God  to  vindicate  our 
cause,  the  issue  is  sure  to  prove  marvellous  in  spirituality." 

The  critics  have  vociferously  charged  that  after  the  sup- 
pression of  the  Boxer  uprising,  the  missionaries  greatly  em- 
barrassed their  goverments  by  demanding  bloody  vengeance 
upon  the  Chinese.  It  may  indeed  be  true  that  among  the 
thousands  of  Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  missionaries  in 
China,  some  temporarily  lost  their  self-control  and  gave  way  to 
anger  under  the  awful  provocation  of  ruined  work,  burned 
homes,  outraged  women  and  butchered  Chinese  Christians. 
How  many  at  home  would  or  could  have  remained  calm  in 
such  circumstances  ?  But  it  is  grossly  unjust  to  treat  such 
excited  utterances  as  representative  of  the  great  body  of 
missionary  opinion.  The  missionaries  went  to  China  and 
they  propose  to  stay  there  because  they  love  and  believe  in  the 
Chinese,  and  it  is  very  far  from  their  thought  to  demand  un- 
due punishment  for  those  who  oppose  them.  They  sensibly 
expected  a  certain  amount  of  opposition  from  tradition, 
heathenism,  superstition  and  corruption,  and  they  are  not  dis- 
posed to  call  for  unmanly  or  unchristian  measures  when  that 
trouble  falls  upon  them  which  fell  in  even  greater  measure  on 
the  Master  Himself. 

It  is  true  that  some  of  the  missionaries  felt  that  the  ring- 
leaders of  the  Boxers,  including  those  in  high  official  position 
who  more  or  less  secretly  incited  them  to  violence,  should  be 


Missionaries  and  Their  Own  Governments   241 

punished.  But  they  were  not  thinking  of  revenge,  so  much  as 
of  the  welfare  of  China,  the  restoration  to  power  of  the  best  ele- 
ment among  the  Chinese,  and  the  reasonable  security  of 
Chinese  Christians  and  of  foreigners  who  have  treaty  rights. 
Many  missionaries  feel  that  there  is  no  hope  for  China  save  in 
the  predominance  of  the  Reform  Party,  and  that  if  the  re- 
actionaries are  to  remain  in  control,  the  outlook  is  dark  indeed, 
not  so  much  for  the  foreigner  as  for  China  itself.  The  men 
who  were  guilty  of  the  atrocities  perpetrated  in  the  summer  of 
1900  violated  every  law,  human  and  divine,  and  some  of  the 
missionaries  demanded  their  punishment  only  in  the  same 
spirit  as  the  ministers  and  Christian  people  of  the  United 
States  who  with  united  voice  demanded  the  punishment  of  the 
four  young  men  in  Paterson,  New  Jersey,  who  had  been 
systematically  outraging  young  girls. 

Nevertheless,  as  to  the  whole  subject  of  the  policy  which 
should  be  adopted  by  our  Government  in  China,  I  believe  that 
it  would  be  wise  for  both  the  missionaries  and  the  mission 
boards  to  be  cautious  in  proffering  advice,  and  to  leave  the 
responsibility  for  action  with  the  lawfully  constituted  civil 
authorities  upon  whom  the  people  have  placed  it.  Govern- 
ments have  better  facilities  for  acquiring  accurate  information 
as  to  political  questions  than  missionaries  have.  They  can  see 
the  bearings  of  movements  more  clearly  than  those  who  are 
not  in  political  life  and  can  discern  elements  in  the  situation 
that  are  not  so  apparent  to  others.  Moreover,  they  must  bear 
the  blame  or  praise  for  consequences.  They  can  ask  for 
missionary  opinion  if  they  want  it.  Generations  of  protest 
against  priestly  domination,  chiefly  by  Protestant  ministers 
themselves,  have  developed  in  both  Europe  and  America  a  dis- 
position to  resent  clerical  interference  in  political  questions. 
This  is  particularly  true  of  matters  in  Asia,  where  the  political 
situation  is  so  delicate.  The  opinions  publicly  expressed  by 
the  missionaries  as  to  the  policy,  which,  in  their  judgment, 
should  be  adopted  by  our  Government  and  by  the  European 


242  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Powers  have  included  not  only  many  articles  of  individual 
missionaries  in  newspapers  and  magazines,  but  formal  com- 
munications of  bodies  or  committees  of  missionaries.  Con- 
spicuous examples  are  the  protests  of  missionaries  assembled  in 
Chefoo  and  Shanghai  in  1900  against  the  decision  of  the 
American  Government  to  withdraw  its  troops  from  Peking,  to 
recognize  the  Empress  Dowager  and  to  omit  certain  officials 
from  the  list  of  those  who  were  to  be  executed  or  banished,  and, 
in  particular,  the  letter  addressed  by  "the  undersigned 
British  and  American  missionaries  representative  of  societies 
and  organizations  that  have  wide  interests  in  China  to  their 
Excellencies  the  Plenipotentiaries  of  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  accredited  to  the  Chinese  Government." 

These  actions  were  taken  by  men  whose  character,  ability 
and  knowledge  of  the  Chinese  entitle  them  to  great  weight,  and 
who  were  personally  affected  in  the  security  of  their  lives  and 
property  and  in  the  interests  of  their  life-work  by  the  policy 
adopted  by  their  respective  Governments.  All  were  citizens  who 
did  not  abdicate  their  citizenship  by  becoming  missionaries, 
and  whose  status  and  rights  in  China,  as  such,  have  been 
specifically  recognized  by  treaty.  All,  moreover,  expressed 
their  views  with  clearness,  dignity  and  force.  From  the  view- 
point of  right  and  privilege,  and,  indeed,  political  duty  as 
citizens,  they  were  abundantly  justified  in  expressing  their 
opinions. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  friends  of  missions  who 
doubt  whether  formal  declarations  of  judgment  "  as  mission- 
aries," on  political  and  military  questions,  were  accorded  much 
influence  by  diplomats ;  whether  they  did  not  increase  the 
popular  criticism  of  missionaries  to  an  extent  which  more  than 
counterbalanced  any  good  that  they  accomplished ;  whether 
they  did  not  identify  the  missionary  cause  with  "  the  consul 
and  gunboat"  policy  which  Lord  Sahsbury  charged  upon  it; 
and  whether  they  did  not  prejudice  their  own  future  influence 
over  the  Chinese  and  strengthen  the  impression  that  the  mis- 


Missionaries  and  Their  Own  Governments  243 

sionaries  are  '*  political  emissaries."     In  reply  to  my  inquiry  as 
to  his  opinion,  Sir  Robert  Hart  expressed  himself  as  follows : — 

"  As  for  punitive  measures,  etc.,  I  have  really  no  personal  knowledge 
of  the  action  taken  by  American  missionaries,  and  hearsay  is  not  a  good 
foundation  for  opinion.  It  is  said  that  vindictive  feeling  rather  than  ten- 
der mercy  has  been  noticed.  But  even  if  so,  it  cannot  be  wondered  at,  so 
cruel  were  the  Chinese  assailants  when  they  had  the  upper  hand.  The 
occasion  has  been  altogether  anomalous,  and  it  is  only  at  the  parting  of 
the  ways  the  difference  of  view  comes  in.  That  what  was  done  merited 
almost  wholesale  punishment  is  a  view  most  will  agree  in — eyes  turned  to 
the  past — but  when  discussion  tries  to  argue  out  what  will  be  best  for  the 
future,  some  will  vote  for  striking  terror,  and  others  for  trusting  more  to 
the  more  slowly  working  but  longer  lasting  effect  of  mercy.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve any  missionary  has  brought  anybody  to  punishment  who  did  not 
richly  deserve  it.  But  some  people  seem  to  feel  it  would  have  been  wiser 
for  ministers  of  the  gospel  to  have  left  to  '  governors '  the  '  punishment  of 
evil-doers.'  For  my  part,  I  cannot  blame  them,  for  without  their  assistance 
much  that  is  known  would  not  have  been  known,  and,  although  numbers 
of  possibly  innocent,  inoffensive  and  non-hostile  people  may  have  been 
overwhelmed  in  this  last  year's  avalanche  of  disaster,  there  are  still  at 
large  a  lot  of  men  whose  punishment  would  probably  have  been  a  good 
thing  for  the  future.  One  can  only  hope  that  their  good  luck  in  escaping 
may  lead  them  to  take  a  new  departure,  and  with  their  heads  in  the  right 
direction," ' 

Wisely  or  unwisely — the  former,  I  venture  to  think — the  in- 
terdenominational conference  of  American  mission  boards  hav- 
ing work  in  China,  held  in  1900,  declined  to  make  representa- 
tions to  our  Government  on  questions  of  policy  during  the  Boxer 
uprising.  They  necessarily  had  much  correspondence  with 
Washington  regarding  the  safety  of  missionaries  during  the 
siege,  but  when  I  inquired  of  Secretary  of  State  Hay  as  to  the 
accuracy  of  the  later  newspaper  charges  that  mission  boards 
were  urging  the  Government  to  retaliatory  measures,  he  promptly 
replied  :  "  No  communications  of  this  nature  have  been  re- 
ceived from  the  great  mission  boards  or  from  their  authorized 
representatives. ' ' 

1  Letter  to  the  author  with  permission  to  print,  July,  1901. 


244  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

But  let  us  hear  the  missionaries  themselves  on  this  subject. 
An  interdenominational  committee,  headed  by  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Calvin  W.  Mateer,  prepared  a  reply  to  this  criticism,  which  has 
been  circulated  throughout  China  and  has  received  the  assent 
of  so  large  a  number  of  missionaries  of  all  churches  and  nation- 
alities that  it  may  be  taken  as  representing  the  views  of  fully 
nine-tenths  of  the  whole  body  of  Protestant  missionaries  in  the 
Empire.  This  letter  should  be  given  the  widest  possible  cur- 
rency, as  expressing  the  views  of  men  who  are  the  peers  of  any 
equal  number  of  Christian  workers  in  the  world.  It  is  dated 
May  24,  1901,  and,  after  discussing  the  question  of  the  respon- 
sibility for  the  Boxer  uprising,  the  letter  continues : 

"  With  reference  to  the  second  point — that  we  have  manifested  an  un- 
christian spirit  in  suggesting  the  punishment  of  those  who  were  guilty  of 
the  massacre  of  foreigners  and  native  Christians — we  understand  that  the 
criticism  applies  chiefly  to  the  message  sent  by  the  public  meeting  held  in 
Shanghai  in  September  last. 

"I.  It  should,  in  the  first  place,  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  resolutions 
passed  at  that  meeting  were  called  for  by  the  proposal  of  the  Allies  to 
evacuate  Peking  immediately  after  the  relief  of  the  Legations.  It  was 
felt,  not  only  by  missionaries  but  by  the  whole  of  the  foreign  residents  in 
China,  that  such  a  course  would  be  fraught  with  the  greatest  disaster,  in- 
asmuch as  it  would  give  sanction  to  further  lawlessness. 

"  2.  Further  it  must  be  remembered  that,  while  suggesting  that  a  sat- 
isfactory settlement  *  should  include  the  adequate  punishment  of  all  who 
were  guilty  of  the  recent  murders  of  foreigners  and  jnative  Christians,' 
it  was  left  to  the  Powers  to  decide  what  that  '  adequate  punishment ' 
should  be.  Moreover,  when  taking  such  measures  as  were  necessary, 
they  were  urged  to  '  make  every  effort  to  avoid  all  needless  and  indis- 
criminate slaughter  of  Chinese  and  destruction  of  their  property.' 

"  3.  By  a  strange  misunderstanding  we  find  that  this  suggestion  has 
been  interpreted  as  though  it  were  animated  by  an  unchristian  spirit  of 
revenge.  With  the  loss  of  scores  of  friends  and  colleagues  still  fresh  upon 
us,  and  with  stories  of  cruel  massacres  reaching  us  day  by  day,  it  would 
not  have  been  surprising  had  we  been  betrayed  into  intemperate  ex- 
pressions; but  we  entirely  repudiate  the  idea  which  has  been  read  into  our 
words.  If  governments  are  the  ministers  of  God's  righteousness,  then 
surely  it  is  the  duty  of  every  Christian  Government  not  only  to  uphold  the 


Missionaries  and  Their  Own  Governments  245 

right  but  to  put  down  the  wrong,  and  equally  the  duty  of  all  Christian 
subjects  to  support  them  in  so  doing.  For  China,  as  for  Western  nations, 
anarchy  is  the  only  alternative  to  law.  Both  justice  and  mercy  require 
the  judicial  punishment  of  the  wrong-doers  in  the  recent  outrages.  For 
the  good  of  the  people  themselves,  for  the  upholding  of  that  standard  of 
righteousness  which  they  acknowledge  and  respect,  for  the  strengthening 
and  encouragement  of  those  officials  whose  sympathies  have  been  through- 
out on  the  side  of  law  and  order,  and  for  the  protection  of  our  own  help- 
less women  and  children  and  the  equally  helpless  sons  and  daughters  of 
the  Church,  we  think  that  such  violations  of  treaty  obligations,  and  such 
heartless  and  unprovoked  massacres  as  have  been  carried  out  by  official 
authority  or  sanction,  should  not  be  allowed  to  pass  unpunished.  It  is 
not  of  our  personal  wrongs  that  we  think,  but  of  the  maintenance  of  law 
and  order,  and  of  the  future  safety  of  all  foreigners  residing  in  the  interior 
of  China,  who,  it  must  be  remembered,  are  not  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
Chinese  law,  but,  according  to  the  treaties,  are  immediately  responsible  to, 
and  under  the  protection  of,  their  respective  Governments." 

The  reply  rather  pathetically  concludes  : 

"  It  is  unhappily  the  lot  of  missionaries  to  be  misunderstood  and  spoken 
against,  and  we  are  aware  that  in  any  explanation  we  now  offer  we  add 
to  the  risk  of  further  misunderstanding ;  but  we  cast  ourselves  on  the  for- 
bearance of  our  friends,  and  beg  them  to  refrain  from  hasty  and  ill-formed 
judgments.  If,  on  our  part,  there  have  been  extreme  statements,  if  indi- 
vidual missionaries  have  used  intemperate  words  or  have  made  demands 
out  of  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  our  Divine  Lord,  is  it  too  much  to  ask 
that  the  anguish  and  peril  through  which  so  many  of  our  number  have 
gone  during  the  last  six  months  should  be  remembered,  and  that  the  whole 
body  should  not  be  made  responsible  for  the  hasty  utterances  of  the 
few  ?  " 

A  perplexing  phase  of  the  relation  of  missionaries  to  their 
own  governments  develops  in  times  of  disturbance.  Should 
missionaries  remain  at  their  stations  when  their  minister  or  con- 
sul think  that  they  ought  to  withdraw  to  the  port  where  they 
can  be  more  easily  protected  ?  Should  they  make  journeys 
that  the  consul  deems  imprudent  or  return  to  an  abandoned 
station  before  he  regards  the  trouble  as  ended  ?  This  question 
became  acute  in  connection  with  the  Boxer  outbreak  when  mis- 


246  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

sionaries  sometimes  differed  with  ministers  or  consuls  as  to 
whether  they  should  go  or  stay.  On  the  one  hand  it  may  be 
urged  that  missionaries  are  under  strong  obligations  to  attach 
great  weight  to  the  judgment  of  their  minister  or  consul.  If 
they  receive  the  benefits  and  protection  of  citizenship,  and  if 
by  their  acts  they  may  involve  their  governments,  they  should 
recognize  the  right  of  the  authorized  representatives  of  those 
governments  to  counsel  them.  The  presumption  should  be  in 
favour  of  obedience  to  that  counsel,  and  it  should  not  be  dis- 
regarded without  clear  and  strong  reasons. 

But  the  fact  cannot  be  ignored  that,  whatever  may  be  the 
personal  sympathies  of  individual  ministers  or  consuls,  diplo- 
macy as  such  considers  only  the  secondary  results  of  missions, 
and  not  the  primary  ones.  Government  officials,  speaking  on 
missionary  work,  almost  invariably  dwell  on  its  material  and 
civilizing  rather  than  its  spiritual  aspects.  They  do  not,  as 
officials,  feel  that  the  salvation  of  men  from  sin  and  the  com- 
mand of  Christ  to  evangelize  all  nations  are  within  their  sphere. 
Moreover,  diplomacy  is  proverbially  and  necessarily  cautious. 
Its  business  is  to  avoid  risks,  and,  of  course,  to  advise  others  to 
avoid  them.  The  political  situation,  too,  was  undeniably  un- 
certain and  delicate.  The  future  was  big  with  possibility  of  peril. 
In  such  circumstances,  we  should  expect  diplomacy  to  be  anx- 
ious and  to  look  at  the  whole  question  from  the  prudential  view- 
point. 

But  the  missionary,  like  the  soldier,  must  take  some  risks. 
From  Paul  down,  missionaries  have  not  hesitated  to  face  them. 
Christ  did  not  condition  His  great  command  upon  the  approval 
of  Csesar.  It  was  not  safe  for  Morrison  to  enter  China,  and  for 
many  years  missionaries  in  the  interior  were  in  grave  jeopardy. 
But  devoted  men  and  women  accepted  the  risk  in  the  past,  and 
they  will  accept  it  in  the  future.  They  must  exercise  common 
sense.  And  yet  this  enterprise  is  unworldly  as  well  as  worldly, 
and  when  the  soldier  boldly  faces  every  physical  peril,  when 
the  trader  unflinchingly  jeopardizes  life  and  limb  in  the  pursuit 


Missionaries  and  Their  Own  Governments   247 

of  gold — I  found  a  German  mining  engineer  and  his  wife  liv- 
ing alone  in  a  remote  village  soon  after  the  Boxer  excitement — 
should  the  missionary  be  held  back  ? 

If,  however,  after  full  and  careful  deliberation,  missionaries  feel 
that  it  is  their  duty  to  disregard  the  advice  of  their  minister  or 
consul,  they  should  consult  their  respective  boards  and  if  the 
boards  sustain  them,  all  concerned  should  accept  responsibility 
for  the  risks  involved. 

But  if  missionaries  do  not  permit  governments  to  control 
their  movements,  they  should  not  be  too  exacting  in  their  de- 
mands on  them  when  trouble  comes.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Henry 
M.  Field  once  said  : — 

«  A  foreign  missionary  is  one  who  goes  to  a  strange  country  to  preach 
the  gospel  of  our  salvation.  That  is  his  errand  and  his  defense.  The 
civil  authorities  are  not  presumed  to  be  on  his  side.  If  he  offends  the 
sensibiUties  of  the  people  to  whom  he  preaches,  he  is  supposed  to  face 
the  consequences.  If  he  cannot  win  men  by  the  Word  and  his  own  love 
for  their  souls,  he  cannot  call  on  the  civil  or  military  powers  to  convert 
them.  Nor  is  the  missionary  a  merchant,  in  the  sense  that  he  must  have 
ready  recourse  to  the  courts  for  a  recouping  of  losses  or  the  recovery  of 
damages.  Commercial  treaties  cannot  cover  all  our  missionary  enter- 
prises. Confusion  of  ideas  here  has  confounded  a  good  many  fine  plans 
and  zealous  men.  It  is  a  tremendous  begging  of  the  whole  question  to 
insist  on  the  nation's  protection  of  the  men  who  are  to  subvert  the 
national  faith.  Property  rights  and  preaching  rights  get  closely  en- 
twined, and  it  is  difficult  to  untangle  them  at  times,  but  the  distinc- 
tion is  definite  and  the  difference  often  fundamental.  By  confusing 
them  we  weaken  the  claims  of  both.  And  when  our  Christian  preachers 
get  behind  a  mere  property  right  in  order  to  defend  their  right  to  preach 
a  new  religion,  they  dishonour  themselves  and  defame  the  faith  they 
profess.  To  get  behind  diplomatic  guaranties  in  order  to  evangelize  the 
nations  is  to  mistake  the  sword  for  the  Spirit,  to  rely  on  the  arm  of  flesh 
and  put  aside  the  help  of  the  Almighty." 

That  is,  in  my  judgment,  stating  the  case  rather  strongly. 
Doubtless  Dr.  Field  did  not  mean  that  governments  would  be 
justified  in  discriminating  against  missionaries  and  he  would 


248  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

probably  have  been  one  of  the  first  to  protest  if  they  had  done 
so.  He  was  addressing  missionaries,  reminding  them  that  they 
could  do  in  liberty  what  the  governments  could  not  do  in  law, 
and  exhorting  against  any  disposition  to  depend  unduly  upon 
the  sword  of  the  secular  arm.  At  any  rate,  he  was  a  devoted 
friend  of  missions  and  as  such  his  words  are  deserving  of 
thoughtful  consideration. 


XXI 

RESPONSIBILITY  OF  MISSIONARIES  FOR  THE 
BOXER  UPRISING 

CRITICS  vociferously  assert  that  the  missionaries  were 
chiefly  responsible  for  the  Boxer  uprising  and  for  most 
of  the  prejudice  of  the  Chinese  against  foreigners.  As 
to  the  general  accuracy  of  this  charge,  the  reader  has  doubtless 
formed  some  impression  from  what  has  been  said  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapters  regarding  the  objects  and  methods  of  foreign 
trade  and  foreign  politics.  Still,  it  is  but  fair  to  remember  that 
there  are  3,348  missionaries  in  China,  representing  almost  every 
European  and  American  nationality  and  no  less  than  nine 
Roman  Catholic  and  fifty-eight  Protestant  boards.  As  might 
be  expected,  the  standard  of  appointment  varies.  A  few 
boards,  while  insisting  upon  high  spiritual  qualifications,  do 
not  insist  upon  equal  qualifications  of  some  other  kinds,  while 
in  all  societies  an  occasional  missionary  proves  to  be  visionary 
and  ill-balanced.  But  in  the  great  majority  of  the  boards, 
the  standard  of  appointment  is  very  high,  and  while  occasional 
mistakes  are  made,  yet  as  a  rule  the  missionaries  represent  the 
best  type  of  Protestant  Christianity.  They  are,  as  a  class, 
men  and  women  of  education,  refinement  and  ability — in  every 
respect  the  equals  and  as  a  rule  the  superiors  of  the  best  class 
of  non-missionary  Europeans  and  Americans  in  China. 

Now  it  is  manifest  that  criticisms  which  may  be  true  of  some 
missionaries  may  not  be  true  of  the  missionary  body  as  a 
whole.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  average  critic  has  in  mind 
either  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  or  the  members  of  some 
independent  society.  This  is  notably  true  of  Michie.  Many 
of  the  charges  are  not  true  even  of  them,  but  of  the  charges 

249 


250  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

that  I  have  seen  that  have  any  foundation  at  all,  nine-tenths 
do  not  apply  to  the  missionaries  of  church  boards.  It  is  al- 
ways fair,  therefore,  to  ask  a  critic,  "  To  which  class  of  mission- 
aries do  you  refer  ?  " 

The  clearest  line  of  distinction  is  between  the  Protestants 
and  the  Roman  Catholics.     The  latter  are  numerous.     They 
have  been  in  China  the  longest.     They  have  the  largest  follow- 
ing, and  their  methods  are  radically  different  from  those  of  the 
Protestant  missionaries.     It   is  not  denied  that  some  of  the 
priests  are  high-minded,  intelligent  men  and  that  some  of  the 
Protestants    lack    wisdom.     But    comparing    the   two   classes 
broadly,  no  one  who  is  at  all  conversant  with  the  facts  will  re- 
gard the  Protestants  as  inferior.     I  do  not  wish  to  be  unjust  to 
the  Roman  Catholic  missionaries  in  China.     Many  good  things 
might  be  said  regarding  the  work  which  some  of  them  are  do- 
ing.    I  personally  called  at  several  Roman  Catholic  stations  in 
various  parts  of  the  Empire  and  I  have  vivid  recollections  of 
the  kindness  with  which  I  was  received,  while  more  than  once 
I  was  impressed  by  the  unmistakable  evidences  of  devotion  and 
self-sacrifice.     It  was  pleasant  to  hear  many  Protestant  mission- 
aries declare  that   they  had   never  heard  a  suspicion  as  to  the 
moral  character  of  the  priests.     I  did  not  hear  any  in  all  north 
China.     The  lives  of  the  Roman  Catholic  missionaries  are  hard 
and  narrow  and  they  have  no  relief  in  the  companionships  of 
wife  and  children,  in  furloughs  or  in  medical  attendance,  for 
they  have  no  medical  missionaries,  while  not  infrequently  the 
priest  lives  alone  in  a  village.     Dead  to  the  world,  with  no 
families  and  no  expectation  of  returning  to  their  native  land, 
trained  from  boyhood  to  a  monastic  life,  drilled  to  unquestion- 
ing obedience  and  to  few  personal  needs,  their  ambition  is  not 
to  get  anything  for  themselves  but  to  strengthen  the  Church 
for  which  the  individual  priest  unhesitatingly  sacrifices  himself, 
content  if  by  his  complete  submergence  of  his  own  interests  he 
has  helped  to  make  her  great.     With  such  men,  Rome  is  a 
mighty  power  in  Asia.     But  the  sincere,  devoted  man  may  be 


Responsibility  of  Missionaries  251 

even  more  dangerous  if  his  zeal  is  wrongly  directed,  and  the 
question  under  discussion  now  is  not  the  personal  character  of 
individuals,  but  the  general  policy  of  the  Church.  As  to 
the  character  and  effects  of  this  policy  I  found  a  remarkable 
unanimity  of  opinion  in  China,  and  I  could  easily  produce 
from  my  note-books  the  names  of  scores  of  credible  witnesses 
to  the  substantial  accuracy  of  my  position. 

Whatever  may  be  said  in  favour  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  it 
is  unquestionable  that  their  methods  are  far  more  irritating  to 
the  Chinese  than  the  methods  of  the  Protestants.  Led  by  able 
and  energetic  bishops,  the  priests  acquire  all  possible  business 
property,  demand  large  rentals,  build  imposing  religious  plants, 
and  baptize  or  enroll  as  catechumens  all  sorts  of  people.  It  is 
notorious  that  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  quite  generally 
adopt  the  policy  of  interference  on  behalf  of  their  converts. 
Through  the  Minister  of  France  at  Peking  they  obtained  an 
Imperial  Edict,  dated  March  15,  1899,  granting  them  official 
status,  so  that  the  local  priest  is  on  a  footing  of  equality  with 
the  local  magistrate,  and  has  the  right  of  full  access  to  him  at 
any  time.  Whether  or  not  intended  by  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  the  impression  is  almost  universal  in  China  among 
natives  and  foreigners  alike  that,  if  a  Chinese  becomes  a 
Catholic,  the  Church  will  stand  by  him  through  thick  and 
thin,  in  time  and  in  eternity.  There  are,  indeed,  exceptions. 
Dr.  Johnson,  of  Ichou-fu,  told  me  of  a  Roman  Catholic  Chris- 
tian who,  during  the  Boxer  troubles,  stealthily  moved  his  goods 
into  Ichou-fu,  burned  his  house,  and  then  put  in  a  claim  for 
indemnity.  The  heathen  neighbours,  when  asked  to  pay,  in- 
formed the  priest.  He  summoned  the  man,  who  confusedly 
said  that  if  he  had  not  burned  the  house,  the  Boxers  would  have 
done  so,  and  he  thought  he  had  better  do  it  at  a  convenient 
time  as  it  was  sure  to  be  burned  anyway.  The  priest  promptly 
decided  that  he  must  suffer  the  loss  himself.  So  the  priests  do 
not  always  stand  by  their  converts  whether  right  or  wrong. 

No  one,  however,  who  is  familiar  with  the  general  course  of 


252  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  China,  will  deny  that,  as  a 
rule,  the  priests  boldly  champion  the  cause  of  their  converts. 
This  is  one  secret  of  Rome's  great  and  rapidly  growing  power 
in  China,  and  unquestionably,  too,  it  is  one  of  the  chief  causes 
of  Chinese  hostility  to  missions.  After  many  years  of  obser- 
vation, Dr.  J.  Campbell  Gibson  writes : — 

"  In  the  missions  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  they  (treaty  rights)  are 
systematically,  and  I  am  afraid  one  must  say  unscrupulously,  used  for  the 
gathering  in  of  large  numbers  of  nominal  converts,  whose  only  claim  to 
the  Christian  name  is  their  registration  in  lists  kept  by  native  catechists, 
in  which  they  are  entered  on  payment  of  a  small  fee,  without  regard  to 
their  possession  of  any  degree  of  Christian  knowledge  or  character.  In 
the  event  of  their  being  involved  in  any  dispute  or  lawsuit,  the  native 
catechists  or  priests,  and  even  the  foreign  Roman  Catholic  missionaries, 
take  up  their  cause  and  press  it  upon  the  native  magistrates.  Not  infre- 
quently a  still  worse  course  is  pursued.  Intimation  is  sent  round  the 
villages  in  which  there  are  large  numbers  of  so-called  Catholic  converts, 
and  these  assemble  under  arms  to  support  by  force  the  feuds  of  their 
co-religionists.  The  consequence  is  that  the  Catholic  missions  in  southern 
China,  and  I  believe  in  the  north  also,  are  bitterly  hated  by  the  Chinese 
people  and  by  their  magistrates.  By  terrorizing  both  magistrates  and 
people,  they  have  secured  in  many  places  a  large  amount  of  apparent 
popularity ;  but  they  are  sowing  the  seeds  of  a  harvest  of  hatred  and  bit- 
terness which  may  be  reaped  in  deplorable  forms  in  years  to  come."  ^ 

In  my  own  interviews  with  Chinese  officials,  it  was  my  custom 
to  lead  the  conversation  towards  the  motives  of  those  who  had 
attacked  foreigners  during  the  Boxer  uprising,  and  without  ex- 
ception the  officials  mentioned,  among  other  causes,  the  inter- 
ference of  Roman  Catholic  priests  with  the  administration  of 
the  law  in  cases  affecting  their  converts.  In  several  places  in 
the  interior,  this  was  the  only  reason  assigned. 

Said  an  intelligent  Chinese  official  in  Shantung:  "The 
whole  trouble  is  not  with  the  Protestants  but  with  the  Catholics. 
Protestant  Christians  do  not  go  to  law  so  often,  and  when  they 

1  "  Mission  Problems  and  Mission  Methods  in  South  China,"  pp.  309, 
310. 


Responsibility  of  Missionaries  253 

do,  the  Protestant  missionary  does  not,  as  a  rule,  interfere  unless 
he  is  sure  they  are  right.  But  the  Catholic  Christians  are 
constantly  involved  in  lawsuits,  and  the  priests  invariably  stand 
by  them  right  or  wrong.  The  priests  seem  to  think  that  their 
converts  cannot  be  wrong.  The  result  is  that  many  Chinese 
join  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  to  get  the  help  of  the  priests 
in  the  innumerable  lawsuits  that  the  Chinese  are  always  waging. 
And  it  is  not  surprising  in  such  circumstances  that  Catholic 
Christians  are  a  bad  lot."  When  I  asked  the  magistrate  of 
Paoting-fu  why  the  people  had  killed  such  kindly  and  help- 
ful neighbours  as  the  Congregational  and  Presbyterian  mission- 
aries, he  replied: — "The  people  were  angered  by  the  inter- 
ference of  the  Roman  Catholics  in  their  lawsuits.  They  felt 
that  they  could  not  obtain  justice  against  them,  and  in  their 
frenzy  they  did  not  distinguish  between  Catholics  and  Protes- 
tants." The  Roman  Catholic  Mission  in  the  prefecture  of 
Paoting-fu,  it  should  be  remembered,  is  about  two  centuries 
old,  and  the  Catholic  population  is  about  12,000,  so  that  the 
few  hundreds  of  converts  who  have  been  gathered  in  the  recent 
work  of  the  Protestants  are  very  small  in  comparison,  while  the 
splendid  cathedral  of  the  Roman  Church,  the  spectacular  char- 
acter of  its  services  and  the  official  status  and  aggressiveness 
of  its  priests  intensify  the  disproportion.  The  term  Christian, 
therefore,  to  the  average  man  of  Paoting-fu  naturally  means  a 
Roman  Catholic  rather  than  a  Protestant. 

Perhaps  we  should  make  some  allowance  for  Oriental  forms 
of  statement  to  one  who  was  known  to  be  a  Protestant.  The 
politeness  of  an  Oriental  host  to  a  guest  is  not  always  limited 
by  veracity,  and  it  is  possible  that  to  Roman  Catholics  the 
officials  may  blame  the  Protestants.  But  such  unanimity  of 
testimony  among  so  many  independent  and  widely  separated 
officials  must  surely  count  for  something,  especially  when  the 
grounds  for  it  are  so  notorious.  Undoubtedly,  there  are  many 
sincere  Christians  among  the  Roman  Catholic  Chinese,  but 
judging  from  the  almost  universal  testimony  that  I  heard  in 


254  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

China,  the  Roman  Church  is  a  veritable  cave  of  AduUam  for 
unscrupulous  and  revengeful  Chinese. 

The  evidence  does  not  rest  upon  the  testimony  of  Protestants 
alone.  If  any  one  will  take  the  trouble  to  look  up  the  diplo- 
matic correspondence  on  this  subject,  he  will  find  ample  and 
convincing  testimony.  February  9,  187 1,  the  Tsung-li  Yamen 
addressed  to  the  Foreign  Legations  at  Peking  a  memorandum 
together  with  eight  propositions,  the  whole  embodying  the 
complaints  and  objections  of  the  Chinese  Government  to  mis- 
sionaries and  their  work  in  China,  and  suggesting  certain  regu- 
lations for  the  future.  This  memorandum  included  the  follow- 
ing paragraph  :  — 

"  The  missionary  question  affects  the  whole  question  of  pacific  relations 
with  foreign  powers — the  whole  question  of  their  trade.  As  the  Minister 
addressed  cannot  but  be  well  aware,  wherever  missionaries  of  the  Romish 
profession  appear,  ill-feeling  begins  between  them  and  the  people,  and  for 
years  past,  in  one  case  or  another,  points  of  all  kinds  on  which  they  are 
at  issue  have  been  presenting  themselves.  In  earlier  times  when  the 
Romish  missionaries  first  came  to  China,  styled,  as  they  were,  '  Si  Ju,' 
the  Scholars  of  the  West,  their  converts  no  doubt  for  the  most  part  were 
persons  of  good  character;  but  since  the  change  of  ratifications  in  i860, 
the  converts  have  in  general  not  been  of  a  moral  class.  The  result  has 
been  that  the  religion  that  professes  to  exhort  men  to  virtue  has  come  to 
be  lightly  thought  of;  it  is  in  consequence,  unpopular,  and  its  unpopularity 
is  greatly  increased  by  the  conduct  of  the  converts  who,  relying  on  the 
influence  of  the  missionaries,  oppress  and  take  advantage  of  the  common 
people  (the  non-Christians) :  and  yet  more  by  the  conduct  of  the  mission- 
aries themselves,  who,  when  collisions  between  Christians  and  the  people 
occur,  and  the  authorities  are  engaged  in  dealing  with  them,  take  part 
with  the  Christians,  and  uphold  them  in  their  opposition  to  the  authori- 
ties. This  undiscriminating  enlistment  of  proselytes  has  gone  so  far  that 
rebels  and  criminals  of  China,  pettifoggers  and  mischief-makers,  and  such 
like,  take  refuge  in  the  profession  of  Christianity,  and  covered  by  this 
position,  create  disorder.  This  has  deeply  dissatisfied  the  people,  and 
their  dissatisfaction  long  felt  grows  into  animosity,  and  their  animosity 
into  deadly  hostility.  The  populations  of  different  localities  are  not  aware 
that  Protestantism  and  Romanism  are  distinct.  They  include  both  under 
the  latter  denomination.     They  do  not  know  that  there  is  any  distinction 


Responsibility  of  Missionaries  255 

between  the  nations  of  the  West.  They  include  them  all  under  one  de- 
nomination of  foreigners,  and  thus  any  serious  collision  that  occurs  equally 
compromises  all  foreigners  in  China.  Even  in  the  provinces  not  con- 
cerned, doubt  and  misgiving  are  certain  to  be  largely  generated." 

The  memorandum  and  its  attached  propositions  are  interest- 
ing reading  as  showing  the  impression  which  the  Chinese  Gov- 
ernment had  of  Roman  Catholic  missionary  work.  The  third 
proposition  included  the  following  statement : — 

"They  (Roman  Catholic  converts)  even  go  so  far  as  to  coerce  the  au- 
thorities and  cheat  and  oppress  the  people.  And  the  foreign  missionaries, 
without  inquiring  into  facts,  conceal  in  every  case  the  Christian  evil-doer, 
and  refuse  to  surrender  him  to  the  authorities  for  punishment.  It  has 
even  occurred  that  malefactors  who  have  been  guilty  of  the  gravest 
crimes  have  thrown  themselves  into  the  profession  of  Christianity,  and 
have  been  at  once  accepted  and  screened  (from  justice).  In  every  prov- 
ince do  the  foreign  missionaries  interfere  at  the  offices  of  the  local  author- 
ities in  lawsuits  in  which  native  Christians  are  concerned.  For  example 
in  a  case  that  occurred  in  Sze-chuen  in  which  some  native  Christian 
women  defrauded  certain  persons  (non-Christians)  of  the  rent  owing  to 
them,  and  actually  had  these  persons  wounded  and  killed,  the  French 
Bishop  took  on  himself  to  write  in  official  form  (to  the  authorities)  plead- 
ing in  their  favour.  None  of  these  women  were  sentenced  to  forfeit  life 
for  life  taken,  and  the  resentment  of  the  people  of  Sze-chuen  in  conse- 
quence remains  unabated." 

Mr.  Wade,  the  British  Minister  at  Peking,  in  reporting  this 
memorandum  and  its  appended  propositions  to  Earl  Granville, 
June  8,  1871,  said: 

"The  promiscuous  enlistment  of  evil  men  as  well  as  good  by  the 
Romish  missionaries,  and  their  advocacy  of  the  claims  advanced  by  these 
ill-conditioned  converts,  has  made  Romanism  most  unpopular ;  and  the 
people  at  large  do  not  distinguish  between  Romanist  and  Protestant,  nor 
between  foreigner  and  foreigner;  not  that  Government  has  made  no  effort 
to  instruct  the  people,  but  China  is  a  large  Empire.  .  .  .  Three- 
fourths  of  the  Romish  missionaries  in  China,  in  all,  between  400  and  500 
persons,  are  French;  and    Romanism   in    the  mouths  of  non-Christian 


256 


New  Forces  in  Old  China 


Chinese  is  as  popularly  termed  the  religion  of  the  French  as  the  religion 
of  the  Lord  of  Heaven," 

June  27th  of  that  year,  Earl  Granville  wrote  to  Lord  Lyons 
that  he  had  said  to  the  French  Charge  d' Affaires :  — 

"  I  told  M.  Gavard  that  I  could  not  pretend  to  think  that  the  conduct 
of  the  French  missionaries,  stimulated  by  the  highest  and  most  laudable 
object,  had  been  prudent  in  the  interest  of  Christianity  itself,  and  that  the 
support  which  had  been  given  by  the  representatives  of  France  to  their 
pretensions  was  dangerous  to  the  future  relations  of  Europe  with  China." 

The  Hon.  Frederick  F.  Low,  United  States  Minister  at 
Peking,  in  communicating  that  memorandum  and  the  attached 
propositions  to  the  State  Department  in  Washington,  March 
20,  1871,  said  : — 

"  A  careful  reading  of  the  Memorandum  clearly  proves  that  the  great, 
if  not  only,  cause  of  complaint  against  the  missionaries  comes  from  the 
action  of  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  and  the  native  Christians  of  that 
faith.  .  ,  .  Had  they  (the  Chinese  Goverment)  stated  their  com- 
plaints in  brief,  without  circumlocution,  and  stripped  of  all  useless  ver- 
biage, they  would  have  charged  that  the  Roman  Catholic  missionaries, 
when  residing  away  from  the  open  ports,  claim  to  occupy  a  semi-official 
position,  which  places  them  on  an  equality  with  the  provincial  officer ; 
that  they  deny  the  authority  of  the  Chinese  officials  over  native  Christians, 
which  practically  removes  this  class  from  the  jurisdiction  of  their  own 
rulers ;  that  their  action  in  this  regard  shields  the  native  Christians  from 
the  penalties  of  the  law,  and  thus  holds  out  inducements  for  the  lawless 
to  join  the  Catholic  Church,  which  is  largely  taken  advantage  of;  that 
orphan  asylums  are  filled  with  children,  by  the  use  of  improper  means, 
against  the  will  of  the  people ;  and  when  parents,  guardians,  and  friends 
visit  these  institutions  for  the  purpose  of  reclaiming  children,  their  requests 
for  examination  and  restitution  are  denied;  and  lastly,  that  the  Frencn 
Government,  while  it  does  not  claim  for  its  missionaries  any  rights  of  this 
nature  by  virtue  of  treaty,  its  agents  and  representatives  wink  at  these 
unlawful  acts,  and  secretly  uphold  the  missionaries.  ...  I  do  not 
believe,  and,  therefore  I  cannot  affirm,  that  all  the  complaints  made 
against  Catholic  missionaries  are  founded  in  truth,  reason,  or  justice ;  at 
the  same  time,  I  believe  tliat  there  is  foundation  for  some  of  their  charges. 


Responsibility  of  Missionaries  257 

My  opinions,  as  expressed  in  former  despatches  touching  this  matter,  are 
confirmed  by  further  investigation.     .     .     ." 

On  the  same  date,  Minister  Low  wrote  to  the  Tsung-li 
Yamen : — 

"  It  is  a  noticeable  fact,  that  among  all  the  cases  cited  there  does  not 
appear  to  be  one  in  which  Protestant  missionaries  are  charged  with  violat- 
ing treaty,  law  or  custom.  So  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  your  complaints 
are  chiefly  against  the  action  and  attitude  of  the  missionaries  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  faith  ;  and,  as  these  are  under  the  exclusive  protection 
and  control  of  the  Government  of  France,  I  might  with  great  propriety 
decline  to  discuss  a  matter  with  which  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  has  no  direct  interest  or  concern,  for  the  reason  that  none  of  its  citi- 
zens are  charged  with  violating  treaty  or  local  law,  and  thus  causing 
trouble." 

This  tendency  of  the  Chinese  to  confuse  Roman  Catholics 
and  Protestants  is  further  illustrated  by  the  note  addressed  by 
Minister  Wen  Hsiangto  Sir  R.  Alcock  : — 

"  Extreme  indeed  would  be  the  danger  if,  popular  indignation  having 
been  once  aroused  by  this  opposition  to  the  authorities,  the  hatred  of  the 
whole  population  of  China  were  excited  like  that  of  the  people  of  Tien- 
tsin against  foreigners,  and  orders,  though  issued  by  the  Government, 
could  not  be  for  all  that  put  in  force.  .  .  .  Although  the  creeds  of  the 
various  foreign  countries  differ  in  their  origin  and  development  from  each 
other,  the  natives  of  China  are  unable  to  see  the  distinction  between 
them.  In  their  eyes  all  (teachers  of  religion)  are  '  missionaries  from  the 
West,'  and  directly  they  hear  a  lying  story  (about  any  of  these  mission- 
aries), without  making  further  and  minute  inquiry  (into  its  truth),  they 
rise  in  a  body  to  molest  him." 

As  for  the  Protestant  missionaries,  it  would  be  useless  to  as- 
sert that  every  one  of  them  has  always  been  blameless  in  this 
matter.  Moreover,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  the  gospel  is  a  revolutionary  force.  Christ 
Himself  said  that  He  came  not  to  send  peace  on  earth  but  a 
sword,  and  to  set  a  man  at  variance  against  his  father.     There 


258  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

is  usually  more  or  less  of  a  protest  in  a  heathen  land  when  a 
man  turns  from  the  old  faith  to  the  new  one.  The  refusal  to 
contribute  to  the  temple  sacrifices  and  to  worship  the  ancestral 
tablets  is  sure  to  be  followed  by  a  furious  outcry.  The  con- 
vert is  apt  to  be  assailed  as  a  traitor  to  the  national  custom  and 
as  having  entered  into  league  with  the  foreigner. 

To  the  Chinese,  moreover,  all  white  men  are  "  Christians  " 
and  "  foreign  devils,"  and  all  alike  stand  for  the  effort  to  for- 
eignize  and  despoil  China.  Except  where  personal  acquaint- 
ance has  taught  certain  communities  that  there  is  a  difference 
between  white  men,  the  evil  acts  of  one  foreigner  or  of  one  ag- 
gressive foreign  Government  are  charged  against  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  race,  just  as  in  the  pioneer  days  in  the  American 
colonies,  a  settler  whose  wife  had  been  killed  by  an  Indian  took 
his  revenge  by  indiscriminately  shooting  all  the  other  Indians 
he  could  find.  Any  hatred  that  the  Chinese  may  have  against 
Christianity  is  due,  not  so  much  to  its  religious  teachings,  as  to 
its  identification  with  the  foreign  nations  whose  religion  Chris- 
tianity is  supposed  to  be  and  whose  aggressions  the  Chinese 
have  so  much  reason  to  fear  and  to  hate. 

For  this  reason,  the  introduction  of  Buddhism  and  Moham- 
medanism is  not  parallel,  and  to  base  an  argument  against 
Christianity  on  the  alleged  fact  that  the  other  faiths  easily  suc- 
ceeded in  domesticating  themselves  in  China  is  to  confuse  facts. 
Neither  Buddhism  nor  Mohammedanism  entered  China  as  an 
aggressive  propaganda  by  foreigners.  The  Chinese  themselves 
brought  in  Buddhism,  and  it  spread  chiefly  because  it  grafted 
into  itself  many  Chinese  superstitions  and  did  not  oppose 
Chinese  vices,  but  rather  assimilated  them.  Why  should  the 
people  have  opposed  a  religion  which  interfered  with  nothing 
that  they  valued  and  reenforced  their  darling  prejudices?  As 
for  Islam,  we  have  already  seen  '  that  it  is  the  faith  of  early  im- 
migrants and  their  descendants,  that  its  followers  do  not  propa- 
gate it,  that  they  live  in  separate  communities,  are  disliked  by 

1  Chapter  VI. 


Responsibility  of  Missionaries  259 

the  Chinese  and  are  often  at  open  war  with  them.  Chris- 
tianity, on  the  contrary,  comes  to  China  with  foreigners  who 
have  no  intention  of  settling  down  as  permanent  members  of 
Chinese  society,  who  are  classed  as  representatives  of  nations 
which  are  regarded  as  more  or  less  hostile  and  unjust,  and  who 
preach  their  religion  as  a  vital  spiritual  faith  which  opposes  all 
wrong,  uproots  all  superstition  and  aims  at  the  moral  reconstruc- 
tion of  every  man.  Of  course,  therefore,  Christianity  must  ex- 
pect a  reception  different  in  some  respects  from  that  which  was 
given  to  Buddhism  and  Mohammedanism. 

It  is  the  shallowest  of  all  objections  to  missions  that 
Mr.  Francis  Nichols  urged  in  the  North  American  Review 
when  he  insisted  that  "the  missionary  is  not  engaged  to  be  a 
reformer,"  but  that  "  his  mission  is  to  preach  the  gospel— noth- 
ing more." 

"  Is  the  gospel  then  simply  a  patent  arrangement  by  which  idolaters 
can  get  to  heaven,  without  disturbing  their  idolatry  or  the  vices  associated 
with  it  ?  Was  not  Christ  a  reformer  ?  and  Paul  also,  and  his  successors, 
who,  by  their  preaching,  gave  the  idols  of  Rome  to  the  moles  and  the 
bats,  and  robbed  the  Coliseum  of  its  gladiatorial  shows  ?  It  is  the  glory 
of  Christianity  that  on  questions  of  truth  and  righteousness  it  makes  no 
compromise.  Its  mission  is  to  save  the  world  by  reforming  it.  .  .  . 
Who  that  understands  the  genius  of  Christianity  can  fail  to  see  that  China 
Christianized  must  be  very  different  from  China  as  it  now  is?  "  » 

After  making  all  due  allowance  for  these  things,  how- 
ever, the  fact  still  remains  that  opposition  of  this  sort  in 
China  is  usually  local  and  sporadic.  It  affects  a  greater 
or  less  number  of  individuals  and  families  and  occasionally 
a  community,  but  it  does  not  move  a  whole  population  to 
the  frenzy  of  a  national  uprising.  The  anti-foreign  hatred 
of  the  Boxers  was  fierce  in  thousands  of  cities  and  villages 
where  there  were  no  missionaries  or  Chinese  Christians  at 
all.  In  the  sphere  of  religion  proper,  the  Chinese  are  not  an 
intolerant  people.  They  are  almost  wholly  devoid  of  sec- 
1  The  Rev.  Dr.  Calvin  Mateer,  Teng-chou. 


26o  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

tarian  spirit.  The  coming  of  another  religion  would  not  of 
itself  excite  serious  opposition,  for  having  become  accustomed 
to  the  presence  and  intermingling  of  several  religions,  it  would 
not  antecedently  occur  to  the  Chinese  that  a  fourth  faith  would 
involve  the  abandonment  of  the  others.  They  would  be  more 
apt  to  infer  that  the  new  could  be  accepted  in  harmony  with 
the  old  in  the  established  way.  So  the  worst  foe  that  the 
Christian  missionary  has  to  encounter  is  not  hostility  but  in- 
difference. 

As  a  rule,  the  Chinese  have  not  strenuously  objected  to  the 
Protestant  missionaries  as  missionaries.  It  is  the  policy  of  the 
mission  boards  to  avoid  all  unnecessary  interference  with  native 
customs.  So  far  from  coveting  official  equality  with  Chinese 
magistrates,  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries throughout  the  Empire  expressly  declined  to  avail 
themselves  of  the  offer  of  the  Chinese  Government  to  give  them 
the  same  privileges  and  official  status  that  was  accorded  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  priests  and  bishops  in  the  Imperial  decree  of 
March  15,  1899. 

"The  very  thing  which  missionaries  seek  to  avoid  is  dena- 
tionalizing their  converts.  So  far  as  mission  schools  at  the 
ports  are  concerned,  it  is  not  the  missionary  who  is  chiefly  re- 
sponsible for  what  foreignizing  is  done.  The  Chinese  who 
patronize  these  schools  want  their  children  to  learn  foreign  ac- 
complishments. Such  schools,  however,  form  but  a  very  small 
part  of  the  extensive  educational  work  done  by  American 
missionaries  in  China."  * 

Many  of  the  missionaries,  especially  in  the  interior  stations, 
don  Chinese  clothing,  shave  their  heads  and  wear  a  queue. 
Everywhere  the  missionaries  learn  the  Chinese  language,  try  to 
get  into  sympathy  with  the  people,  teach  the  young,  heal  the  sick, 
comfort  the  dying,  distribute  relief  in  time  of  famine,  preach  the 
gospel  of  peace  and  good-will,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  unprej- 
udiced judges,  are  upright,  sensible  and  useful  workers.  Not 
1  The  Rev.  Dr.  Calvin  H.  Mateer. 


Responsibility  of  Missionaries  261 

only  men  but  women  travel  far  into  the  interior,  the  former  fre- 
quently alone  and  unarmed.  They  go  into  the  homes  of  the 
people,  preach  in  village  streets,  sleep  unprotected  in  Chinese 
houses,  and  receive  much  personal  kindness  from  all  classes. 

The  experience  of  the  Presbyterian  mission  at  Chining-chou 
is  an  illustration  of  what  has  occurred  in  scores  of  communities. 
When  Dr.  Stephen  A.  Hunter  and  the  Rev.  William  Lane  tried 
to  open  a  station  in  1890,  they  were  mobbed  and  driven  out, 
barely  escaping  with  their  lives.     But  in  June,  1892,  the  Rev. 
J.  A.  Laughlin  arrived  and  was  permitted  to  buy  property  and, 
in  September,  to  bring  his  family  and  begin  permanent  resi- 
dence.    There  are  hereditary  bands  of  robbers  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, and  more  than  once  they  attacked  the  mission  com- 
pound.    But  gradually  the  peaceful  purpose  and  the  beneficent 
life  of  the  missionaries  became  known   and  active  opposition 
ceased.     When  the  Boxer  outbreak  occurred,  there  were  about 
150  baptized  adults,  besides  a  considerable  number  of  children 
and  adherents.    During  the  troubles,  only  two  of  the  Christians 
recanted,  the  rest  holding  together  and  continuing  regular  serv- 
ices.     The    mission    property    was    undisturbed  during   the 
whole  period.     It  is  true,  the  officials  were  friendly ;  but  even 
Governor  Yuan  Shih  Kai's  influence  could  not  prevent  some 
loss  in  his  own  capital.      In  Chining-chou  not  a  thing  was 
touched,  a  striking  testimony  to  the  friendliness  of  the  people 
towards  the  missionaries  whom  they  had  learned  to  love.     As 
I  approached  the  city  with  the  returning  missionaries,  a  group 
of  thirty  met  us  with  beaming  faces.     For  nearly  a  year,  they 
had   been  without  a  missionary  and  their  joy  at  seeing  Mr. 
Laughlin  was  unmistakable.     As  we  passed  through  the  city  to 
the  mission-compound  in  the  southeast  suburb,  people  in  al- 
most every  door  and  window  smiled  and  bowed  a  welcome. 
Nor  was  this  cordiality  confined  to  the  Christians ;  many  of  all 
classes  being  outspoken  in  their  manifestations  of  respect  and 
affection. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  the  Chinese  sense  of  propriety  is  so  out- 


^) 


262  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

raged,  as  some  critics  would  have  us  believe,  by  the  coming  of 
single-women  missionaries.  It  is  true  that  in  a  land  where  all 
women  are  supposed  to  marry  at  an  early  age  and  where  their 
freedom  of  movement  is  rigidly  circumscribed,  the  position  of 
the  unmarried  woman,  however  discreet  she  may  be,  is  some- 
times embarrassingly  misunderstood  until  the  community  be- 
comes better  acquainted  with  her  mission  and  character.  But 
the  opposition  of  the  Chinese  on  this  account  has  been  grossly 
exaggerated  by  those  whose  prior  hostility  to  all  missionary 
work  predisposed  them  to  make  as  much  capital  as  possible  out 
of  the  small  gossip  on  this  subject.  Even  if  the  misunderstand- 
ing were  as  general  and  as  bitter  as  some  allege,  it  would  not 
follow  that  single  women  should  be  withdrawn,  for  such  mis- 
understanding grows  out  of  a  false  and  vicious  conception  of 
the  female  sex  and  its  relation  to  man  and  society,  and  it  is 
just  that  conception  which  Christianity  should  and  does  cor- 
rect. For  that  matter,  the  position  of  the  single  man  is  also 
misunderstood,  while  no  other  person  in  all  China  is  more 
fiercely  hated  by  the  Chinese  than  the  white  traders  in  the 
treaty  ports  who  are  the  chief  source  of  the  criticisms  upon 
missionaries.  The  experience  of  every  mission  board  operating 
in  China  has  shown  that  a  Chinese  town  soon  learns  that  the 
single-woman  missionary  is  a  pure-minded,  large-hearted  and 
unselfish  worker,  who  from  the  loftiest  of  motives  devotes  her- 
self to  the  teaching  of  women  and  children  and  to  self-sacrific- 
ing ministries  to  the  sick  and  suffering.  No  other  foreigners 
are  more  beloved  by  the  people  than  the  single-women  mission- 
aries. 

It  is  simply  foolish  to  say  that  the  missionary  is  responsible 
for  the  prompt  appearance  of  the  consul  and  the  gunboat. 
The  true  missionary  goes  forth  without  either  consul  or  gun- 
boat. He  devotes  his  life  to  ameliorating  the  sad  conditions 
which  prevail  in  heathen  communities.  His  reliance  is  not 
upon  man,  but  upon  God.  But  as  soon  as  his  work  begins  to 
tell,  the  trader  appears  to  buy  and  sell  in  the  new  market. 


Responsibility  of  Missionaries  263 

The  statesman  casts  covetous  eyes  on  the  newly  opened  terri- 
tory. Christianity  civilizes,  and  civilization  increases  wants, 
stimulates  trade  and  breaks  down  barriers.  The  conditions  of 
modern  civilization  are  developed.  Then  the  consul  is  sent, 
not  because  the  missionary  asks  for  him,  but  because  his  gov- 
ernment chooses  to  send  him.  Sooner  or  later  some  local 
trouble  occurs,  and  the  Government  takes  advantage  of  the  op- 
portunity to  further  its  territorial  or  commercial  ambitions. 
"Missionaries  responsible,  indeed  !  "  writes  Dr.  H.  H.  Jessup. 
"The  diplomats  of  Europe  know  better.  Had  there  been  no 
grabbing  of  seaports  and  hinterlands,  no  forcing  modern  im- 
provements and  European  goods  down  the  throats  of  the  Chi- 
nese, the  missionaries  would  have  been  let  alone  now  as  in  the 
past." 

It  is  the  foreign  idea  that  the  Chinese  dislikes,  the  interfer- 
ence with  his  cherished  customs  and  traditions.  A  railroad 
alarms  and  angers  him  more  than  half  a  hundred  missionaries. 
A  plowshare  cuts  through  more  of  his  superstitions  than  a  mis- 
sion school.  He  does  not  want  the  methods  of  our  western 
civilization,  and  he  resents  the  attempt  to  push  them  upon  him. 
If  no  other  force  had  been  at  work  than  the  foreign  missionary, 
the  anti-foreign  agitation  would  never  have  started.  It  is  sig- 
nificant that  those  who  protest  that  we  ought  not  to  force  our  re- 
ligion upon  the  Chinese  do  not  appear  to  think  that  there  is 
anything  objectionable  in  forcing  our  trade  upon  them.  The 
animosity  of  the  Chinese  has  been  primarily  excited,  not  by  the 
missionary,  but  by  the  trader  and  the  politician,  and  the  mis- 
sionary suffers  chiefly  because  he  comes  from  the  country  of 
the  trader  and  the  politician  and  is  identified  with  them  as  a 
member  of  the  hated  race  of  foreigners. 

On  this  whole  subject,  I  have  been  at  some  pains  to  collect 
the  testimony  of  men  whose  positions  are  a  guarantee  not  only 
of  knowledge  but  of  impartiality. 

The  Hon.  George  F.  Seward,  formerly  United  States 
Minister  to  China,  declares  :  — 


264  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

"  The  people  at  large  make  too  much  of  missionary  work  as  an  occasion 
for  trouble.  There  are  missionaries  who  are  iconoclasts,  but  this  is  not 
their  spirit.  In  great  measure,  they  are  men  of  education  and  judgment. 
They  depend  upon  spiritual  weapons  and  good  works.  For  every  enemy 
a  missionary  makes,  he  makes  fifty  friends.  The  one  enemy  may  arouse 
an  ignorant  rabble  to  attack  him.  While  I  was  in  China,  I  always  con- 
gratulated myself  on  the  fact  that  the  missionaries  were  there.  There 
were  good  men  and  able  men  among  the  merchants  and  officials,  but  it 
was  the  missionary  who  exhibited  the  foreigner  in  benevolent  work  as 
having  other  aims  than  those  which  may  justly  be  called  selfish.  The 
good  done  by  missionaries  in  the  way  of  education,  of  medical  relief  and 
of  other  charities  cannot  be  overstated.  If  in  China  there  were  none 
other  than  missionary  influences,  the  upbuilding  of  that  great  people 
would  go  forward  securely.  ...  I  am  not  a  church  member,  but  I 
have  the  profoundest  admiration  for  the  missionary  as  I  have  known  him 
in  China.     He  is  a  power  for  good  and  for  peace,  not  for  evil." 

President  James  B.  Angell,  also  formerly  United  States 
Minister  to  China,  replies  as  follows  to  the  question,  "  Are 
the  Chinese  averse  to  the  introduction  of  the  Chinese 
religion  "  : — 

"  No,  not  in  that  broad  sense.  They  do  not  seem  to  fear  for  the  per- 
manency of  their  own  religion.  It  is  not  that  they  object  to  missionaries 
and  the  Christian  religion  as  much  as  it  is  that  the  missionaries  are 
foreigners.  A  more  serious  cause  of  the  uprising  is  the  wide-spread 
suspicion  among  the  natives,  since  the  Japanese  war,  that  the  foreigners 
are  going  to  partition  China.  It  is  not  strange  that  all  these  conditions 
cause  friction  and  excitement.  The  Chinese  want  to  be  left  to  themselves, 
and  the  one  word  '  foreigners '  sums  up  the  great  cause  of  the  present 
trouble." 

The  Hon.  Charles  Denby,  after  thirteen  years'  experience  as 
United  States  Minister  to  China,  wrote : — 

"  I  unqualifiedly,  and  in  the  strongest  language  that  tongue  can 
utter,  give  to  these  men  and  women  who  are  living  and  dying  in  China 
and  the  Far  East  my  full  and  unadulterated  commendation.  ...  No 
one  can  controvert  the  fact  that  the  Chinese  are  enormously  benefited  by 
the  labours  of  the  missionaries.     Foreign  hospitals  are  a  great  boon  to  the 


Responsibility  of  Missionaries  265 

sick.  In  the  matter  of  education,  the  movement  is  immense.  There  are 
schools  and  colleges  all  over  China  taught  by  the  missionaries.  There  are 
also  many  foreign  asylums  in  various  cities  which  take  care  of  thousands 
of  waifs.  The  missionaries  translate  into  Chmese  many  scientific  and 
philosophical  works.  There  are  various  anti-opium  hospitals  where  the 
victims  of  this  vice  are  cured.  There  are  industrial  schools  and  workshops. 
There  are  many  native  Christian  churches.  The  converts  seem  to  be  as 
devout  as  people  of  any  other  race.  As  far  as  my  knowledge  extends,  I 
can  and  do  say  that  the  missionaries  in  China  are  self-sacrificing ;  that 
their  lives  are  pure ;  that  they  are  devoted  to  their  work ;  that  their  in- 
fluence is  beneficial  to  the  natives;  that  the  arts  and  sciences  and 
civilization  are  greatly  spread  by  their  efforts ;  that  many  useful  western 
books  are  translated  by  them  into  Chinese ;  that  they  are  the  leaders  in  all 
charitable  work,  giving  largely  themselves  and  personally  disbursing  the 
funds  with  which  they  are  intrusted ;  that  they  do  make  converts,  and 
such  converts  are  mentally  benefited  by  conversion."  And  after  the 
Boxer  outbreak  he  added  : — "  I  do  not  believe  that  the  uprising  in  China 
was  due  to  hatred  of  the  missionaries  or  of  the  Christian  religion.  The 
Chinese  are  a  philosophic  people,  and  rarely  act  without  reasoning  upon 
the  causes  and  results  of  their  actions.  They  have  seen  their  land  dis- 
appearing and  becoming  the  property  of  foreigners,  and  it  was  this  that 
awakened  hatred  of  foreigners  and  not  the  actions  of  the  missionaries  or 
the  doctrines  that  they  teach." 

The  present  United  States  Minister,  the  Hon.  Edwin  H. 
Conger,  has  repeatedly  borne  similar  testimony,  publicly 
assuring  the  missionaries  of  his  "  personal  respect  and  pro- 
found gratitude  for  their  noble  conduct." 

The  Hon,  John  W.  Foster,  ex-Secretary  of  State  and 
counsel  for  the  Chinese  Government  in  the  settlement  with 
Japan,  writes:  — 

"  The  opinion  formed  by  me  after  careful  inquiry  and  observation  is 
that  the  mass  of  the  population  of  China,  particularly  the  common  people, 
are  not  specially  hostile  to  the  missionaries  and  their  work.  Occasional 
riots  have  occurred,  but  they  are  almost  invariably  traced  to  the  literati  or 
prospective  office-holders  and  the  ruling  classes.  These  are  often  bigoted 
and  conceited  to  the  highest  degree,  and  regard  the  teachings  of  the 
missionaries  as  tending  to  overthrow  the  existing  order  of  Government  and 
society,  which  they  look  upon  as  a  perfect  system,  and  sanctified  by  great 


266  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

antiquity.  .  .  .  The  Chinese,  as  a  class,  are  not  fanatics  in  religion, 
and  if  other  causes  had  not  operated  to  awaken  a  national  hostility  to 
foreigners,  the  missionaries  would  have  been  left  free  to  combat 
Buddhism  and  Taoism,  and  carry  on  their  work  of  establishing  schools 
and  hospitals." 

Wu  Ting-fang,  Chinese  Minister  to  Washington  during  the 
Boxer  uprising,  while  frankly  stating  that  "  missionaries  are 
placed  in  a  very  delicate  situation,"  and  that  "we  must  not 
be  blind  to  the  fact  that  some,  in  their  excessive  zeal,  have 
been  indiscreet,"  nevertheless  as  frankly  added  : — 

"  It  has  been  commonly  supposed  that  missionaries  are  the  sole  cause 
of  anti-foreign  feeling  in  China.  This  charge  is  unfair.  Missionaries 
have  done  a  great  deal  of  good  in  China.  They  have  translated  useful 
works  into  the  Chinese  language,  published  scientific  and  educational 
journals  and  established  schools  in  the  country.  Medical  missionaries 
especially  have  been  remarkably  successful  in  their  philanthropic  work." 

The  Hon.  Benjamin  Harrison,  late  President  of  the  United 
States,  replied  to  my  inquiry  in  the  terse  remark  : — "  If  what 
Lord  Salisbury  says  were  true,  the  reflection  would  not  be  upon 
the  missionaries,  but  upon  the  premiers." 

General  James  H.  Wilson,  of  the  United  States  Army,  the 
second  in  command  of  the  American  forces  in  Peking,  adds 
his  testimony : — 

««  Our  missionaries,  after  the  earlier  Jesuits,  were  almost  the  first  in 
that  wide  field  (Cliina).  They  were  generally  men  of  great  piety  and 
learning,  like  Morrison,  Brown,  Martin  and  Williams,  and  did  all  in  their 
power  as  genuine  men  of  God  to  show  the  heathen  that  the  stranger  was 
not  necessarily  a  public  enemy,  but  might  be  an  evangel  of  a  higher  and 
better  civilization.  These  men  and  their  co-labourers  have  established 
hospitals,  schools  and  colleges  in  various  cities  and  provinces  of  the 
Empire,  which  are  everywhere  recognized  by  intelligent  Chinamen  as 
centres  of  unmitigated  blessing  to  the  people.  Millions  of  dollars  have 
been  spent  in  this  beneficent  work,  and  the  result  is  slowly  but  surely 
spreading  the  conviction  that  foreign  arts  and  sciences  are  superior  to 
•  fung  shuy  '  and  native  superstition." 


Responsibility  of  Missionaries  267 

The  Hon.  John  Goodnow,  American  Consul-General  at 
Shanghai,  emphatically  declares : — "  It  is  absurd  to  charge 
the  missionaries  with  causing  the  Boxer  War.  They  are 
simply  hated  by  the  Chinese  as  one  part  of  a  great  foreign  ele- 
ment that  threatened  to  upset  the  national  institutions." 

Viceroy  Yuan  Shih  Kai  when  Governor  of  Shantung,  in  the 
spring  of  1901,  wrote  to  the  Baptist  and  Presbyterian 
missionaries  of  the  province  as  follows : 

"You,  reverend  sirs,  have  been  preaching  in  China  for  many  years, 
and,  without  exception,  exhort  men  concerning  righteousness.  Your 
church  customs  are  strict  and  correct,  and  all  your  converts  may  well 
observe  them.  In  establishing  your  customs  you  have  been  careful  to  see 
that  Chinese  law  was  observed.  How,  then,  can  it  be  said  that  there  is 
disloyalty  ?  To  meet  this  sort  of  calumny,  I  have  instructed  that 
proclamations  be  put  out.  I  purpose,  hereafter,  to  have  lasting  peace. 
Church  interests  may  then  prosper  and  your  idea  of  preaching 
righteousness  I  can  promote.  The  present  upheaval  is  of  a  most 
extraordinary  character.  It  forced  you,  reverend  sirs,  by  land  and  water  to 
go  long  journeys,  and  subjected  you  to  alarm  and  danger,  causing  me 
many  qualms  of  conscience." 

A  charge  which  has  been  so  completely  demolished  by  such 
competent  and  unprejudiced  witnesses  can  only  be  renewed  at 
the  expense  of  either  intelligence  or  candour.  Dr.  Arthur  H. 
Smith  truly  says  that  "amid  the  varied  action  of  so  many 
agents  it  is  vain  to  deny  that  Christianity  has  sometimes  been  so 
presented  as  to  be  misrepresented,  but  on  the  whole  there  had 
for  some  time  been  a  marked  and  a  growing  friendliness  on  the 
part  of  both  people  and  officials.  .  .  .  The  convulsion  which 
shook  China  to  its  foundations  was  due  to  general  causes,  slow 
in  their  operations,  but  inevitable  in  their  results.  It  was  the 
impact  of  the  Middle  Ages  with  the  developed  Christian  com- 
mercial civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century,  albeit  accompan- 
ied with  many  incidental  elements  which  were  neither  Christian 
nor  in  the  true  sense  civilized.  If  Christianity  had  never  come 
to  China  at  all,  some  such  collision  must  have  occurred."  ' 
•  "  Rex  Christus,"  pp.  204-206. 


XXII 

THE  CHINESE  CHRISTIANS 

THE  real  effect  of  the  operation  of  the  missionary 
force  is  to  be  seen  in  the  Chinese  who  have  accepted 
Christianity.  As  the  commercial  force  is  causing  an 
economic  revolution  and  as  the  political  force  resulted  in  the 
Boxer  uprising,  so  the  missionary  force  is  developing  a  great 
spiritual  movement  which  is  crystallizing  into  a  Chinese  Church. 
Much  has  been  said  about  the  character  of  the  Chinese  Chris- 
tians and  doubts  have  been  cast  on  the  genuineness  of  their  faith. 
It  is  admitted  that  they  sometimes  try  the  patience  of  the  mis- 
sionary. But  is  the  home  pastor  never  distressed  by  the  conduct 
of  his  members  ?  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  Christians  in 
China  would  compare  favourably  with  the  same  number  selected 
at  random  in  America.  A  Chinese  laundryman  posted  on  his 
door  this  significant  notice  to  his  foreign  customers  : — "  Please 
help  us  to  remember  the  Sabbath  day  to  keep  it  holy  by  bring- 
ing your  clothes  to  the  laundry  before  ten  o'clock  on  Satur- 
days," while  in  another  place  a  Chinese  servant  left  the  morn- 
ing after  a  card  party  at  which  much  money  had  changed 
hands,  stating  to  his  mistress  in  explanation,  "Me  CHstian ; 
me  no  stay  in  heathen  house  !  "  The  Chinese  Christian  does 
not  content  himself  with  church  attendance  once  a  week  when 
the  weather  is  pleasant  or  an  attractive  theme  is  announced. 
He  does  not  find  himself  in  vigorous  health  for  an  evening  en- 
tertainment, and  with  a  bad  headache  on  prayer-meeting  night. 
There  are  of  course  exceptions,  but  as  a  rule,  the  Chinese 
Christians  worship  God  with  regularity  in  all  kinds  of  weather. 
A  missionary  told  me  that  the  attendance  at  his  mid-week 
meeting  was  as  large  as  at  his  Sunday  morning  service,  that 

268 


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< 


The  Chinese  Christians  269 

every  member  of  his  church  asked  a  blessing  at  the  table,  had 
family  prayers  and  tried  to  bring  his  unconverted  friends  to 
Christ.  If  there  is  a  pastor  in  America  who  can  say  that  of  his 
people,  he  has  modestly  refrained  from  making  it  public. 

But  such  comparisons  are,  after  all,  unfair  to  the  Chinese 
Christian  for  he  should  be  compared,  not  with  Europeans  and 
Americans  who  have  had  far  greater  advantages,  but  with  the 
people  of  his  own  country.  "At  home,  you  have  the  ripe 
fruits  of  a  Christianity  which  was  planted  more  than  a  thou- 
sand years  ago.  The  Word  of  God  has  been  among  you  all 
these  Christian  centuries.  You  have  in  every  part  of  the 
country  a  highly  trained  ministry,  a  gifted  and  devoted  elder- 
ship, and  a  whole  army  of  Christian  workers  of  all  ranks.  You 
work  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  Christian  society,  and  under  a 
settled  Christian  government.  You  have  an  immense  and 
varied  Christian  literature,  and  notwithstanding  all  defects  and 
drawbacks,  you  have  on  your  side  a  weight  of  Christian  tradi- 
tion and  a  wealth  of  Christian  example.  Under  such  circum- 
stances and  in  such  an  atmosphere,  what  are  we  not  entitled  to 
expect  of  those  who  bear  the  Christian  name?  What  justice  is 
there,  or  what  reasonableness,  in  demanding  as  a  test  of  genu- 
ineness the  same  degree  of  attainment  on  the  part  of  Christian 
people,  many  of  them  uneducated,  who  are  only  just  emerging 
from  the  deadness  and  insensibility  of  heathenism  ?"  ' 

The  real  question  is  this  : — Is  the  Christian  Chinese  a  better 
man  than  the  non-Christian  Chinese — more  moral,  more  truth- 
ful, more  just,  more  reliable  ?  The  answer  is  so  patent  that  no 
one  who  knows  the  facts  can  doubt  it  for  a  moment.  The  best 
men  and  women  in  China  to-day  are  the  Protestant  Christians. 
This  is  not  saying  that  all  converts  are  good  or  that  all  non- 
Christian  Chinese  are  bad.  But  it  is  saying  that  comparing 
the  average  Christian  with  the  average  heathen,  the  superiority 
of  the  former  in  those  things  which  make  character  and  conduct 
is  immeasurable.     "  The  conscience  of  those  who  have  been 

1  Gibson,  pp.  239,  240. 


270  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

born  into  a  new  life  is  not  suddenly  transformed,  yet  the  change 
does  take  place  and  upon  a  larger  scale.  When  once  it  has 
been  accomplished,  a  new  force  has  been  introduced  into  the 
Chinese  Empire,  a  salt  to  preserve,  a  leaven  to  pervade,  a  seed 
to  bring  forth  after  its  kind  in  perpetually  augmenting  abun- 
dance and  fertility."  ' 

The  character  of  the  Chinese  Christian  will  appear  in  still 
more  striking  relief  if  we  consider  the  circumstances  in  which 
he  hears  the  gospel  and  the  difficulties  which  he  has  to  over- 
come. On  this  subject  the  following  remarkable  passage  from 
Dr.  Gibson  is  worth  quoting  entire  : — 

"  Out  there  the  great  issue  is  tried  with  all  external  helps  removed. 
The  gospel  goes  to  China  with  no  subsidiary  aids.  It  is  spoken  to  the 
people  by  the  stammering  lips  of  aliens.  Those  who  accept  it  do  so  with 
no  prospect  of  temporal  gain.  They  go  counter  to  all  their  own  precon- 
ceptions, and  to  all  the  prejudices  of  their  people.  Try  as  we  may  to  be- 
come all  things  to  all  men,  we  can  but  little  accommodate  our  teaching  to 
their  thought.  .  .  .  Often  and  often  have  I  looked  into  the  faces  of  a  crowd 
of  non-Christian  Chinese  and  felt  keenly  how  many  barriers  lay  between 
their  minds  and  mine.  Reasoning  that  seems  to  me  conclusive  makes  no 
appeal  to  them.  Even  the  words  we  use  to  convey  religious  ideas  do  not 
bear  to  their  minds  one-hundredth  part  of  the  meaning  we  wish  to  put  into 
them.  I  have  often  thought  that  if  I  were  to  expend  all  my  energies  to 
persuade  one  Chinaman  to  change  the  cut  of  his  coat,  or  to  try  some  new 
experiment  in  agriculture,  I  should  certainly  plead  in  vain.  And  yet  I 
stand  up  to  beg  him  to  change  the  habits  of  a  lifetime,  to  break  away 
from  the  whole  accumulated  outcome  of  heredity,  to  make  himself  a  target 
for  the  scorn  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives,  to  break  off  from  the  consoli- 
dated social  system  which  has  shaped  his  being,  and  on  the  bare  word  of 
an  unknown  stranger  to  plunge  into  the  hazardous  experiment  of  a  new 
and  untried  life,  to  be  lived  on  a  moral  plane  still  almost  inconceivable  to 
him,  whose  sanctions  and  rewards  are  higher  than  his  thoughts  as  heaven 
is  higher  than  earth.  While  I  despair  of  inducing  him  by  my  reasonings 
to  make  the  smallest  change  in  the  least  of  his  habits,  I  ask  him,  not  with 
a  light  heart,  but  with  a  hopeful  one,  to  submit  his  whole  being  to  a  change 
that  is  for  him  the  making  of  his  whole  world  anew.     '  Credo  quia  impossi- 

>  Smith,  "  Rex  Christus,"  p.  107. 


The  Chinese  Christians  271 

ble,'  I  believe  it  can  be  done  because  I  know  I  cannot  do  it,  and  the  smallest 
success  is  proof  of  the  working  of  the  divine  power.  The  missionary  must 
either  confess  himself  helpless,  or  he  must  to  the  last  fibre  of  his  being  be- 
lieve in  the  Holy  Ghost.  1  choose  to  believe,  nay  I  am  shut  up  to  believe, 
by  what  my  eyes  have  seen. 

"  I  do  not  mean  that  one  sees  the  results  of  preaching  directly  on  the 
spot.  In  China  at  least  one  seldom  does.  But  by  the  power  of  God  the 
results  come.  We  have  seen  unclean  lives  made  pure,  the  broken-hearted 
made  glad,  the  false  and  crooked  made  upright  and  true,  the  harsh  and 
cruel  made  kindly  and  gentle.  I  have  seen  old  women,  seventy,  eighty, 
eighty-five  years  of  age,  throwing  away  the  superstitions  of  a  lifetime,  the 
accumulated  merit  of  years  of  toilsome  and  expensive  worship,  and  when 
almost  on  the  brink  of  the  grave,  venturing  all  upon  a  new-preached  faith 
and  a  new-found  Saviour.  We  have  seen  the  abandoned  gambler  become 
a  faithful  and  zealous  preacher  of  the  gospel.  We  have  seen  the  poor 
giving  out  of  their  poverty  help  to  others,  poorer  still.  We  see  many 
Chinese  Christians  who  were  once  narrow  and  avaricious,  giving  out  of 
their  hard-earned  month's  wages,  or  more,  yearly,  to  help  the  church's 
work.  We  see  dull  and  uneducated  people  drinking  in  new  ideas,  mys- 
teriously growing  in  their  knowledge  of  Christian  truth,  and  learning  to 
shape  their  lives  by  its  teachings.  We  have  seen  proud,  passionate  men, 
whose  word  was  formerly  law  in  their  village,  submit  to  injury,  loss  and 
insult,  because  of  their  Christian  profession,  until  even  their  enemies  were 
put  to  shame  by  their  gentleness,  and  were  made  to  be  at  peace  with  them. 
And  the  men  and  women  and  children  who  are  passing  through  these  ex- 
periences are  gathering  in  others,  and  building  up  one  by  one  a  Christian 
community  which  is  becoming  a  power  on  the  side  of  all  that  is  good  in 
the  non-Christian  communities  around  them.  .  ,  .  Everything  is  hos- 
tile to  it.  It  is  striking  its  roots  in  an  uncongenial  soil,  and  breathes  a 
polluted  air.  It  may  justly  claim  for  itself  the  beautiful  emblem  so  hap- 
pily seized,  though  so  poorly  justified,  by  Buddhism — the  emblem  of  the 
lotus.  It  roots  itself  in  rotten  mud,  thrusts  up  the  spears  of  its  leaves  and 
blossoms  through  the  foul  and  stagnant  water,  and  lifts  its  spotless  petals 
over  all,  holding  them  up  pure,  stainless  and  fragrant,  in  the  face  of  a 
burning  and  pitiless  sun.  So  it  is  with  the  Christian  life  in  China.  Its 
existence  there  is  a  continuous  miracle  of  life,  of  life  more  abundant."  ' 

•  "  Mission  Problems  and  Mission  Methods  in  South  China,"  pp.  29-31, 
240. 


272  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Is  it  said  that  these  Asiatics  have  become  Christians  for 
gain?  Then  how  shall  we  account  for  the  fact  that  out  of 
their  deep  poverty  they  gave  for  church  work  last  year  ^2.50 
per  capita,  which  is  more  in  proportion  to  ability  than  Chris- 
tians at  home  gave  ?  The  impoverished  Tu-kon  farmers  rented 
a  piece  of  land  and  worked  it  in  common  for  the  support  of 
the  Lord's  work  ;  the  Peking  school-girls  went  without  their 
breakfasts  to  save  money  for  their  church,  and  eight  graduates 
of  Shantung  College  refused  high  salaries  as  teachers,  and  ac- 
cepted low  salaries  as  pastors  of  self-supporting  churches. 
"Rice  Christians?"  Doubtless  in  some  instances,  just  as  at 
home  some  people  join  American  churches  for  business  or 
social  ends.  But  those  Chinese  Christians  are  receiving  less 
and  less  from  abroad  and  yet  their  number  grows. 

And  it  costs  something  to  be  a  Christian  in  China.  All 
hope  of  official  preferment  must  be  abandoned,  for  the  duties 
of  every  magistrate  include  temple  ceremonies  that  no  Chris- 
tian could  conduct.  For  the  average  Christian,  loss  of  busi- 
ness, social  ostracism,  bitter  hatred,  are  the  common  price. 
Near  Peking,  a  young  man  was  thrice  beaten  and  denied  the 
use  of  the  village  well,  mill  and  field  insurance,  because  he  be- 
came a  Christian.  A  widow  was  dragged  through  the  streets 
with  a  rope  about  her  neck  and  beaten  with  iron  rods  which 
cut  her  body  to  the  bone,  while  her  fiendish  persecutors  yelled  :  — 
"You  will  follow  the  foreign  devils,  will  you!"  And  that 
Chinese  saint  replied  that  she  was  not  following  foreigners  but 
Jesus  Christ  and  that  she  would  not  deny  Him  ! 

And  so  on  every  hand  there  are  evidences  of  fidelity  in  serv- 
ice, of  tribulation  joyfully  borne,  of  systematic  giving  out  of 
scanty  resources.  While  sapient  critics  are  telling  us  that  the 
heathen  cannot  be  converted,  the  heathen  are  not  only  being 
converted  but  are  manifesting  a  consecration  and  self-denial 
which  should  shame  many  in  Christian  lands.  At  a  Presby- 
terial  meeting  in  north  China,  the  native  ministers  held  a  two- 
hours'  prayer-meeting  before  daylight.     Such  prayer-meetings 


The  Chinese  Christians  273 

are  not  common  in  America.  Is  it  surprising  that  in  that 
little  North  China  Presbytery  292  baptisms  were  recorded  that 
year? 

Nor  is  this   a   solitary  instance.     Every  Sunday  the  little 
congregations  gather.     Every  day  the  native  helpers  tell  the  / 
Bible-story  to  their  listening  countrymen. 

The  history  of  missions  in  China  has  shown  that  it  requires 
more  time  to  convert  a  Chinese  to  Christianity  than  some  other 
heathen,  but  that  he  can  be  converted  and  that  when  he  is 
converted,  he  holds  to  his  new  faith  with  a  tenacity  and  forti- 
tude which  the  most  awful  persecution  seldom  shakes.  The 
behaviour  of  the  Chinese  Christians  under  the  baptism  of  blood 
and  fire  to  which  they  were  subjected  in  the  Boxer  uprising 
eloquently  testified  to  the  genuineness  of  their  faith.  That 
some  should  have  fallen  away  was  to  be  expected.  Not  every 
Christian,  even  in  the  United  States,  can  "endure  hardness." 
Let  a  hundred  men  anywhere  be  told  that  if  they  do  not  aban- 
don their  faith,  their  homes  will  be  burned,  their  business 
ruined,  their  wives  ravished,  their  children  brained,  and  they 
themselves  scourged  and  beheaded,  and  a  proportion  of  them 
will  flinch. 

It  was  to  be  expected,  too,  that  when,  after  the  uprising,  the 
Christians  found  their  supporters  triumphing  over  a  prostrate 
foe,  some  of  them  should  unduly  exult  and  take  advantage  of 
the  opportunity  to  punish  their  enemies  or  to  collect  money 
from  them  as  the  price  of  protection.  The  spirit  of  retaliation 
is  strong  in  human  nature  in  China  as  well  as  in  America. 
When  the  armies  of  the  Allies,  led  by  educated  and  experi- 
enced officers,  and  controlled  by  diplomats  from  old-established 
Christian  countries,  gave  way  under  the  provocation  of  the 
time  to  unmeasured  greed  and  vindictive  cruelty,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  some  of  the  Chinese  Christians,  only  just  emerged 
from  heathenism,  should  betray  a  revengeful  spirit  towards 
men  who  had  destroyed  their  property,  slaughtered  their  wives 
and  children,  and  hunted  the  survivors  with  the  ferocity  of 


274  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

wild  beasts.  In  some  places,  the  missionaries  had  a  hard  task 
in  restraining  this  spirit.  It  was  inevitable,  also,  that  in  the 
confusion  which  followed  the  victory  of  the  foreigners,  some 
"wolves"  should  put  on  "sheep's  clothing,"  and,  under  the 
pretense  of  being  Christians,  extort  money  from  the  terror- 
stricken  villagers,  or  try  to  deceive  the  foreigner  with  false 
claims  for  indemnity. 

But  as  I  visited  the  scenes  of  disaster,  saw  the  frightful  ruin, 
heard  the  stories  of  Christians  and  missionaries,  faced  the 
little  companies  of  survivors  and  learned  more  of  the  awful 
ordeal  through  which  they  had  passed,  I  marvelled,  not  that 
some  yielded,  but  that  so  many  stood  steadfast.  Edicts  were 
issued  commanding  them  to  recant  on  pain  of  dire  punishment, 
but  promising  protection  to  those  who  obeyed.  The  following 
proclamation  posted  on  the  wall  of  the  yamen  at  Ching-chou-fu 
is  a  sample  of  hundreds  :  — 

"The  Taku  forts  have  been  retaken  by  the  Chinese.  Gen. 
Tung  Fu  Shieng  has  led  the  Boxers  and  the  goddesses,  and 
has  destroyed  twenty  foreign  men-of-war,  killing  6,000  foreign 
soldiers.  The  seven  devilish  countries'  consuls  came  to  beg  for 
peace.  General  Tung  now  has  killed  all  the  foreign  soldiers. 
The  secondary  devils  (the  native  Christians)  must  die.  Gen- 
eral Tung  has  ordered  the  Boxers  to  go  to  the  foreign  countries 
and  bring  out  their  devil  emperors  from  their  holes.  One  for- 
eigner must  not  be  allowed  to  live.  All  who  are  not  Chinese 
must  be  destroyed." 

It  requires  no  large  knowledge  of  Chinese  character  to  calcu- 
late the  effect  of  such  official  utterances  on  the  minds  of  lawless 
men. 

Word  sped  from  a  Chinese  city  that  on  a  certain  day  all 
Christians  who  had  not  recanted  could  be  pillaged.  From 
every  quarter,  the  lawless  streamed  in,  eager  for  the  shambles. 
Ruffians  pointed  out  the  women  they  intended  to  take.  And 
there  was  no  foreigner  to  protect,  no  regiment  or  battleship 
for  the  Chinese  Christian. 


The  Chinese  Christians  275 

Those  poor  people,  hardly  out  of  their  spiritual  infancy, 
stood  in  that  awful  emergency  absolutely  alone.  Could  an 
American  congregation  have  endured  such  a  strain  without 
flinching  ?  Let  those  who  can  safely  worship  God  according 
to  the  dictates  of  their  own  consciences  be  thankful  that  the 
genuineness  of  their  faith  has  never  been  subjected  to  that 
supreme  test. 

Those  were  grievous  days  for  the  Christians  of  China. 
Two  graduates  of  Teng-chou  College  remained  for  weary 
weeks  in  a  filthy  dungeon  when  they  might  have  purchased  free- 
dom at  any  moment  by  renouncing  Christianity.  Pastor  Meng 
of  Paoting-fu,  a  direct  descendant  of  Mencius,  was  1 20  miles 
from  home  when  the  outbreak  occurred.  He  was  safe  where 
he  was,  but  he  hurried  back  to  die  with  his  flock.  He  was 
stabbed,  his  arm  twisted  out  of  joint  and  his  back  scorched 
with  burning  candles  in  the  effort  to  make  him  recant.  But 
he  steadfastly  refused  to  compromise  either  himself  or  his 
people  and  was  finally  beheaded. 

The  uneducated  peasant  was  no  whit  behind  his  cultivated 
countrymen  in  devotion  to  duty.  A  poor  cook  was  seized  and 
beaten,  his  ears  were  cut  off,  his  mouth  and  cheeks  gashed 
with  a  sword  and  other  unspeakable  mutilations  inflicted.  Yet 
he  stood  as  firmly  as  any  martyr  of  the  early  Church. 

One  of  the  Chinese  preachers,  on  refusing  to  apostatize,  re- 
ceived a  hundred  blows  upon  his  bare  back,  and  then  the 
bleeding  sufferer  was  told  to  choose  betv/een  obedience  and 
another  hundred  blows.  What  would  we  have  answered  ?  Let 
us,  who  have  never  been  called  on  to  suffer  for  Him,  be  modest 
in  saying  what  we  would  have  done.  But  that  mangled,  half- 
dead  Chinese  gasped  : — "I  value  Jesus  Christ  more  than  life, 
and  I  will  never  deny  Him."  Before  all  of  the  second  hun- 
dred blows  could  be  inflicted,  unconsciousness  came  and  he 
was  left  for  dead.  But  a  friend  took  him  away  by  night, 
bathed  his  wounds  and  secretly  nursed  him  to  recovery.  I  saw 
him,  when  I  was  in  China,  and  I  looked  reverently  upon  the 


276  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

back  that  was  seamed  and  scarred  with  "  the  marks  of  the 
Lord  Jesus."  Of  the  hundreds  of  Christians  who  were  taken 
inside  the  legation  grounds  in  Peking,  not  one  proved  false  to 
their  benefactors,  "  In  the  midday  heat,  in  the  drenching 
night  rains,  under  storms  of  shot  and  shell,  they  fought,  filled 
sand-bags,  built  barricades,  dug  trenches,  sang  hymns  and 
offered  prayers  to  the  God  whom  the  foreigner  had  taught 
them  to  love."  Even  the  children  were  faithful.  During  the 
scream  of  deadly  bullets,  and  the  roar  of  burning  buildings, 
the  voices  of  the  Junior  Christian  Endeavour  Society  were 
heard  singing  :  — 

"There'll  be  no  dark  valley  when  Jesus  comes." 

Such  instances  could  be  multiplied  almost  indefinitely  from 
the  experiences  of  Chinese  Christians  during  the  Boxer  uprising. 
Indeed  the  fortitude  of  the  persecuted  Christians  was  so  re- 
markable that  in  many  cases  the  Boxers  cut  out  the  hearts  of 
their  victims  to  find  the  secret  of  such  sublime  faith,  declaring : 
"  They  have  eaten  the  foreigner's  medicine."  In  those  humble 
Chinese  the  world  has  again  seen  a  vital  faith,  again  seen 
that  the  age  of  heroism  has  not  passed,  again  seen  that  men 
and  women  are  willing  to  die  for  Christ,  Multitudes  with- 
stood a  persecution  as  frightful  as  that  of  the  early  disciples  in 
the  gardens  and  arenas  of  Nero.  If  they  were  hypocrites  why 
did  they  not  recant?  As  Dr.  Maltbie  Babcock  truly  said  : — 
"  One-tenth  of  the  hypocrisy  with  which  they  were  charged 
would  have  saved  them  from  martyrdom."  But  thousands 
of  them  died  rather  than  abjure  their  faith,  and  thousands 
more  "  had  trial  of  mockings  and  scourgings,  yea,  moreover 
of  bonds  and  imprisonment ;  they  were  stoned,  they  were 
sawn  asunder,  they  were  tempted,  they  were  slain  with  the 
sword ;  they  went  about  in  sheepskins,  in  goatskins ;  being 
destitute,  afflicted,  ill-treated  ;  wandering  in  deserts  and  moun- 
tains and  caves  and  the  holes  of  the  earth." 

Col.  Charles  Denby,  late  United  States  Minister  to  China, 


The  Chinese  Christians  277 

declared  : — "  Not  two  per  cent,  of  the  Chinese  Christians  proved 
recreant  to  their  faith  and  many  meet  death  as  martyrs.  Let 
us  not  call  them  *  Rice  Christians  '  any  more.  Their  conduct 
at  the  British  Legation  and  the  Peitang  is  deserving  of  all 
praise."  '  Beyond  question,  the  Chinese  Christians  as  a  body 
stood  the  test  of  fire  and  blood  quite  as  well  as  an  equal 
number  of  American  Christians  would  have  stood  it. 

One  of  the  most  trying  experiences  of  the  missionaries 
has  been  the  dealing  with  those  who  did  recant.  Some  of  the 
cases  were  pitiful.  Poor,  ignorant  men,  confessed  their  sin 
with  streaming  eyes,  saying  that  they  did  not  mean  to  deny 
their  Lord,  but  that  they  could  not  see  their  wives  outraged 
and  their  babies'  heads  crushed  against  stone  walls.  Others 
admitted  that,  though  they  stood  firm  while  one  hundred  blows 
were  rained  upon  their  bare  backs,  yet  after  that  they  became 
confused  and  were  only  dimly  conscious  of  what  they  said  to 
escape  further  agony  than  flesh  and  blood  could  endure. 
Still  others  made  a  distinction,  unfamiliar  to  us,  but  quite  in 
harmony  with  Oriental  hereditary  notions,  between  the  convic- 
tions of  the  heart  and  the  profession  of  the  lips,  so  that  they 
externally  and  temporarily  bowed  their  heads  to  the  storm 
without  feeling  that  they  were  thereby  renouncing  their  faith. 
One  of  the  best  Chinese  ministers  in  Shantung,  after  200 
lashes,  which  pounded  his  back  into  a  pulp,  feebly  muttered 
an  affirmative  to  the  question:  ''Will  you  leave  the  devils' 
church?"  But  he  explained  afterwards  that  while  he  prom- 
ised to  leave  "the  devils'  church,"  he  did  not  promise  to 
leave  Christ's  Church.  The  deception  was  not  as  apparent  to 
him  as  it  is  to  us  whose  moral  perceptions  have  been  sharp- 
ened by  centuries  of  Christian  nurture  which  have  been  denied 
to  the  Chinese. 

When  the  proclamation  ordering  the  extermination  of  all 
foreigners  and  Christians  was  posted  on  the  walls  of  Ching- 
chou-fu,  a  friendly  official  hinted  that  if  the  Chinese  pastors 

Letter,  April  28,  1902. 


278  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

would  sign  a  document  to  the  effect  that  they  would  "  no 
longer  practice  the  foreign  religion,"  he  would  accept  it  as 
sufficient  on  behalf  of  all  their  flocks,  and  not  enforce  the 
order.  Warrants  for  the  arrest  of  every  Christian  had  already 
been  written.  Scoundrels  were  hurrying  in  from  distant  vil- 
lages to  join  in  the  riot  of  plunder  and  lust.  Two  women 
had  already  been  killed.  What  were  the  pastors  to  do? 
There  was  no  missionary  to  guide  them,  for  long  before  the 
consuls  had  ordered  all  foreigners  out  of  the  interior.  The 
agonized  pastors  determined  to  sacrifice  themselves  for  their 
innocent  people,  to  go  through  the  form  of  giving  up  the 
"foreign"  religion.  That  word  '' foreign  "  must  be  empha- 
sized to  understand  their  temptation,  for  the  Chinese  Chris- 
tians do  not  feel  that  Christianity  is  foreign,  but  that  it  is 
theirs  as  well  as  ours.  Moreover,  the  pastors  were  made  to 
understand  that  it  was  simply  a  legal  fiction,  not  affecting 
the  religion  of  their  hearts,  but  only  a  temporary  expedient 
that  the  friendly  magistrate  might  have  a  pretext  for  giving 
his  protection  to  the  Christians.  They  were  not  asked  to 
engage  in  any  idolatrous  rite  or  to  make  any  public  apostasy, 
but  simply  to  sign  a  statement  "  no  longer  to  practice  the 
foreign  religion."  "So  far  from  recanting,"  it  was  urged 
upon  them,  "  you  are  preventing  recanting." 

Their  decision  may  be  best  given  in  the  words  of  Pastor 
Wu  Chien  Cheng:  "When  I  thought  of  these  people,"  he 
said,  his  emotion  being  so  great  that  the  tears  were  running  down 
his  face,  "in  most  cases  with  children  and  aged  parents  de- 
pendent upon  them,  and  thought  of  all  that  was  involved  for 
them  if  I  refused  to  sign  the  paper — well,  I  couldn't  help  it. 
I  decided  to  take  on  myself  the  shame  and  the  sin." 

As  the  Rev.  J.  P.  Bruce,  of  the  English  Baptist  Mission, 
who  told  me  of  this  incident,  truly  says:  "Who  could  listen 
to  such  a  narrative — so  sad  and  painful  and  yet  not  without 
much  that  was  noble — without  sympathy  and  tears?  "  In  this 
spirit  of  tenderness,  so  marked  in  the  Lord's  dealings  with 


The  Chinese  Christians  279 

sinful  Peter,  the  missionaries  dealt  with  the  recanting  Chris- 
tians. With  the  impostors,  indeed,  they  had  less  mercy.  The 
Rev.  R.  M.  Mateer  secured  the  arrest  of  two  scapegraces  who, 
under  pretense  of  being  Christians,  had  blackmailed  innocent 
villagers.  Very  plainly,  too,  did  the  missionaries  deal  with 
Christians,  who,  like  some  people  in  the  United  States  after  a 
fire,  placed  an  extravagant  valuation  upon  what  they  had  lost. 
But  these  were  exceptional  cases. 

On  the  whole.  Christians  in  Europe  and  America  may  well 
have  stronger  sympathy  and  respect  for  their  fellow-Christians 
in  China  who  have  suffered  so  much  for  conscience'  sake. 
Purified  and  chastened  by  the  fearful  holocaust  through  which 
they  have  passed,  they  are  stronger  spiritually  than  ever  before. 
Like  the  apostles  after  Pentecost,  they  are  giving  "with  great 
power  their  witness  of  the  resurrection  of  the  Lord  Jesus." 
"The  Chinese  Church  is  not  yet  strong  enough  to  stand 
entirely  alone,  but  it  is  far  stronger  and  more  self-conscious  of 
the  eternal  indwelling  Spirit  than  ever  before.  It  has  learned 
the  power  of  God  to  keep  the  soul  in  times  of  deadly  peril, 
and  to  enable  the  weakest  to  give  the  strongest  testimony.  It 
has  learned  by  humiliation  and  confession  to  put  away  its  sins, 
and  to  gird  itself  for  new  conflicts  and  new  victories.  .  .  . 
Its  ablest  leaders  are  more  trustworthy  men  than  before  their 
trials,  and  the  body  of  believers  has  a  unity  and  a  cohesive- 
ness  which  will  certainly  bear  fruit  in  the  not  distant  future."  ^ 

'  Smith,  "  Rex  Christus,"  p.  212. 


XXIII 

THE  STRAIN  OF  READJUSTMENT  TO  CHANGED 
ECONOMIC  CONDITIONS 

THE  economic  revolution  in  Asia,  discussed  in  a  pre- 
ceding chapter,'  bears  heavily  on  the  Chinese  Chris- 
tians. So  far  as  the  pressure  affects  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  membership,  the  mission  boards  cannot  give  adequate 
relief.  Abroad  as  well  as  at  home,  it  must  remain  the  inexo- 
rable rule  that  a  Christian  must  live  within  his  income  and  buy 
new  things  only  as  he  can  pay  for  them.  Any  other  policy 
would  mean  utter  ruin.  Here  also,  men  must  "  work  out  their 
own  salvation";  and  the  missionary,  while  trying  to  lift  men 
out  of  barbarous  social  conditions  on  the  one  hand,  should  on 
the  other  resolutely  oppose  the  improvident  eagerness  which 
leads  a  blanketed  Sioux  Indian  to  buy  on  credit  a  rubber-tired 
surrey. 

But  what  about  the  native  ministers  and  teachers,  who  find 
it  impossible  to  live  on  the  salaries  of  a  decade  ago?  The 
problem  of  the  ordinary  helper  is  not  so  difficult.  Springing 
from  the  common  people,  accustomed  from  childhood  to  a 
meagre  scale  of  living,  the  small  salaries  which  the  people  can 
pay  either  in  full  or  in  large  part  are  usually  equal  to  the 
income  which  they  would  have  had  if  they  had  not  become 
Christians.  But  some  native  ministers  come  from  a  higher 
social  grade.  They  are  men  of  education  and  refinement. 
They  cannot  live  in  a  mud  hut,  go  barefooted,  wear  a  loin  cloth 
and  subsist  on  a  few  cents'  worth  of  rice  a  day.  They  must  not 
only  have  better  houses  and  food  and  clothing,  but  they  must 
have  books  and  periodicals  and  the  other  apparatus  of  educated 

J  Chapter  IX. 
280 


Economic  Conditions  281 

men.  These  things  are  not  only  necessary  to  their  own  main- 
tenance, but  they  are  essential  to  the  work,  for  these  men  are 
the  main  reliance  for  influencing  the  upper  classes  in  favour  of 
Christianity.  It  is  not  a  question  of  luxury  or  self-indulgence, 
but  of  bare  respectability,  of  the  simple  decencies  of  life  which 
are  enjoyed  by  an  American  mechanic  as  distinguished  from 
the  poverty  which,  for  a  cultivated  family,  falls  below  the  level 
of  self-respect.  But  this  requires  a  salary  which,  save  in  a 
very  few  places,  cannot  at  present  be  paid  by  the  churches. 
"Our  pastors,"  writes  a  missionary,  "are  supposed  to  live  as 
the  middle-class  of  their  people  do,  but  of  late  years,  with  the 
great  rise  in  prices,  they  are  living  below  the  middle- class." 

The  consequences  are  not  only  pinching  poverty  but  some- 
times a  feeling  of  wrong,  and,  in  some  cases,  a  yielding  to 
temptation.  One  Chinese  pastor,  for  example,  who  was  trying 
to  support  a  wife  and  five  children  on  ^10  Mex.  ($5)  a  month, 
shipwrecked  his  influence  by  trying  to  supplement  his  scanty 
income  by  helping  in  lawsuits.  Can  we  wonder  that  he  felt 
obliged  to  do  something,  almost  anything  ? 

But  who  is  to  pay  the  higher  salaries  that  are  now  so  neces- 
sary? The  first  impulse  is  to  look  to  the  mission  boards  in 
Europe  and  America,  and  accordingly  missionaries  and  Chris- 
tians are  importunately  calling  for  increased  appropriations. 
But  whatever  temporary  and  occasional  relief  may  be  given  in 
this  way,  as  a  permanent  remedy,  it  is  plainly  impossible.  If 
the  conditions  were  simply  sporadic  and  local,  the  case  might 
be  different.  But  they  are  universal,  or  fast  becoming  so,  and 
they  will  be  permanent.  It  is  quite  visionary  to  suppose  that  the 
income  of  the  mission  boards  will  permit  them  to  meet  the 
whole  or  even  the  larger  part  of  the  increased  cost  of  living 
among  the  myriads  of  ministers,  teachers  and  helpers  in  the 
growing  churches  of  China.  American  Christians  cannot  be 
reasonably  expected  to  add  such  an  enormous  burden  to  the 
already  large  responsibilities  which  they  are  carrying  in  their 
varied  forms  of  home  work  and  the  present  scale  of  foreign 


282  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

missionary  expenditure.  Even  if  they  could  and  would,  it 
would  be  at  the  expense  of  all  further  enlargement  of  the  work, 
and  at  the  same  time  it  would  still  further  weaken  an  already 
weak  sense  of  self-reliance  among  the  native  ministers  and 
helpers  of  Asia. 

Moreover,  the  average  Christian  giver  in  America  is  feeling 
the  same  strain  himself.  The  so-called  "era  of  prosperity" 
has  given  more  steady  employment  to  the  mechanic,  has  given 
better  markets  to  the  producer,  and  has  enormously  increased 
the  wealth  of  many  who  were  already  rich.  But  the  men  on 
fixed  salaries  find  that  "prosperity"  has  increased  the  prices 
of  commodities  without  proportionately  increasing  earnings. 
Millions  of  American  church  members  find  it  harder  to  give 
than  they  did  ten  years  ago,  for  while  their  incomes  are  about 
the  same,  they  must  pay  higher  prices  for  meats,  groceries  and 
clothing.  True,  many  salaries  were  cut  down  during  the  finan- 
cial stringency  of  1896-1897,  but  while  some  of  them  have 
been  restored  to  their  former  figure,  few  have  been  raised  above 
their  original  level,  while  others  are  still  below  it.  Meantime 
official  statistics  show  that  the  average  cost  of  food  is  10.9  per 
cent,  higher  than  the  average  for  the  decade  between  1890  and 
1899,  and  that  there  has  been  an  increase  of  16.  i  per  cent,  as 
compared  with  1896,  the  year  of  lowest  prices.'  It  is  urged  that 
the  wages  of  workmen  have  increased  in  proportion.  But  how- 
ever true  this  may  be  of  organized  labour,  it  is  palpably  untrue  of 
the  great  middle-class  who  are  neither  capitalists  nor  members 
of  labour  unions.  They  form  the  bulk  of  the  church  member- 
ship and  to  them  "  Mr.  Wright's  statement  will  carry  no  reassur- 
ance. It  is  they  who  have  been  hit  hardest  by  the  increased 
cost  of  living  for  their  incomes  have  not  kept  pace  with  it. 
Indeed,  they  are  actually  worse  off  to-day  than  they  were 
eight,  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago."  ^  Dun's  Review,  an  acknowl- 
edged authority,  declares  that  not  in  twenty  years  has  it  cost 

^  Report  of  the  Hon.  Carroll  D.  Wright,  Commissioner  of  Labour,  1903. 
*  The  YoutJi's  Companion,  October  29,  1903. 


Economic  Conditions  283 

so  much  to  live  as  now,  and  that  March  i,  1904,  the  average 
prices  of  breadstuffs  were  thirty  per  cent,  higher  than  they  were 
seven  years  ago. 

In  such  circumstances,  it  is  clearly  out  of  the  question  for 
the  Christians  of  the  United  States  to  meet  these  enlarged  de- 
mands for  the  support  of  their  own  families  and,  in  addition, 
meet  them  for  the  churches  in  China. 

If  then,  the  problem  of  the  increased  cost  of  living  in  Asia 
cannot  be  solved  by  increased  gifts  from  America,  what  other 
solutions  are  possible?  As  an  experienced  missionary  says  : — 
"To  ask  for  more  from  America  seems  like  a  step  backward  ; 
but  to  leave  matters  as  they  are  is  to  see  our  churches  seriously 
crippled."     Four  possible  solutions  may  be  mentioned. 

First : — Stop  all  expansion  of  the  work  and  use  any  increase 
in  receipts  to  raise  salaries.  This  is  undoubtedly  worthy  of 
thoughtful  consideration.  To  what  extent  is  it  right  to  open 
new  fields  and  enlarge  old  ones  when  the  workers  now  em- 
ployed are  inadequately  paid?  Plainly,  the  mission  boards 
should  carefully  consider  this  aspect  of  the  question.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  many  of  them  have  already  considered  it.  The 
Presbyterian  Board  has  repeatedly  declined  urgent  requests  to 
establish  new  stations  on  the  ground  that  it  could  not  do  so  in 
justice  to  its  existing  work.  But  as  a  practicable  solution,  this 
method  is  open  to  serious  difficulties.  A  living  work  must  grow, 
and  the  living  forces  which  govern  that  growth  are  more  or  less 
beyond  the  control  of  the  boards.  The  boards  are  amenable 
to  their  constituencies  and  those  constituencies  sometimes  im- 
peratively demand  the  occupation  of  a  new  field,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, they  did  in  the  case  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  some 
boards  which  at  first  decided  not  to  enter  the  Philippines  being 
afterwards  forced  into  them  by  a  pressure  of  denominational 
opinion  that  they  could  not  ignore.  Moreover,  the  mission- 
aries themselves  are  equally  insistent  in  their  demands  for  en- 
largement. Some  boards  are  literally  deluged  with  such  ap- 
peals.    The  missionaries  who  have  most  strenuously  insisted  on 


284  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

the  policy  of  no  further  expansion  till  the  existing  work  is  bet- 
ter sustained  have  sometimes  been  the  very  ones  who  have 
strongly  urged  that  an  exception  should  be  made  in  their  par- 
ticular fields,  without  realizing  that  the  argument  from  "  excep- 
tions" is  so  often  pressed  that  it  is  really  the  rule  and  not  the 
exception  at  all.  And  the  churches  and  missionaries  are 
usually  right.  God  is  calling  His  people  to  go  forward.  His 
voice  is  frequently  very  plain,  and  the  boards,  with  all  their 
care  and  conservatism,  are  then  obliged  to  expand. 

Second  : — Diminish  the  number  of  native  pastors,  helpers  and 
teachers  and  increase  their  work.  In  some  places,  this  might 
be  done  by  grouping  congregations  and  fields.  But  the  places 
where  this  could  be  wisely  effected  are  so  few  that  the  relief  to 
the  situation  as  a  whole  would  not  be  appreciable,  especially  as 
the  native  Christians  would  not  give  so  liberally  under  such  an 
arrangement.  Their  sense  of  responsibility  would  be  weak- 
ened if  they  had  only  a  half  or  a  quarter  of  a  pastor's  time  in- 
stead of  the  whole  of  it.  Besides,  the  native  force  is  far  too 
small  now.  Instead  of  being  diminished  it  should  be  largely 
increased.  The  great  work  of  the  future  must  be  done  by  na- 
tive ministers.  If  China  is  ever  to  be  evangelized,  it  must 
be  to  a  large  degree  by  Chinese  evangelists.  To  adopt  deliber- 
ately the  policy  of  restricting  the  number  of  such  evangelists 
and  teachers  would  be  suicidal.  As  a  solution,  therefore,  this 
method  is  quite  impracticable,  as  it  would  be  a  relief  at  the  ex- 
pense of  efficiency. 

Third : — Require  native  leaders  to  earn  their  own  living  either 
wholly  or  in  part.  There  is  Pauline  example  for  this  method. 
Some  of  the  Presbyterian  missionaries  in  Laos  have  adopted  it 
by  inducing  the  members  of  a  congregation  to  secure  a  rice- 
field  and  a  humble  house  for  their  minister.  The  Korea  mis- 
sionaries have  very  successfully  worked  this  method  by  insist- 
ing that  the  leaders  of  groups  shall  continue  in  their  former  oc- 
cupations and  give  their  services  to  Christian  work  without  pay, 
in  some  such  way  as  Sunday-school  superintendents  and  other 


Economic  Conditions  285 

unpaid  workers  do  in  America.  This  method  is  deserving  of 
wider  adoption.  It  would  give  considerable  relief  in  many 
other  fields.  It  was  probably  the  way  that  the  early  church 
grew. 

"  Two  opinions,"  says  Dr.  J.  J.  Lucas,  "  have  been  held  in  regard  to 
the  basis  on  which  the  salaries  of  native  agents  should  be  fixed.  One  is 
that  such  a  salary  should  be  paid  as  would  remove  all  excuse  for  engaging 
in  secular  work,  demanding  all  the  time  of  the  pastor  for  spiritual  work ; 
another  is,  that  acknowledging  the  salary  to  be  insufficient,  the  pastors  be 
expected  to  supplement  it  by  what  they  can  get  from  field  and  vineyard. 
If  self-support  is  to  be  aimed  at,  at  all  cost,  then  the  latter  plan  is  the  only 
feasible  one,  with  the  dangers  of  its  abuse.  There  is  no  doubt,  however, 
that  a  man  who  loves  the  gospel  ministry  and  is  devoted  to  it  can,  without 
the  neglect  of  spiritual  affairs,  do  enough  outside  to  lessen  materially  the 
burden  that  would  fall  on  the  church  in  his  support." 

But  this  method  of  itself  would  hardly  solve  the  problem. 
However  well  adapted  to  the  beginnings  of  mission  work,  it 
fails  to  provide  a  properly  qualified  native  leadership.  To  do 
efficient  work,  a  native  pastor  must  give  his  whole  time  to  it, 
and  to  that  end  he  must  have  a  salary  that  will  make  him  ''  free 
from  worldly  cares  and  avocations."  We  insist  on  this  in  the 
United  States  and  the  reasons  for  such  a  policy  are  as  strong 
on  the  foreign  field.  The  minister  in  Asia  as  well  as  the  min- 
ister in  America  must  have  a  salary.  The  labourer  is  worthy  of 
his  hire. 

Fourth  : — Insist  upon  a  larger  measure  of  self-support.  The 
native  churches  must  be  led  to  a  fuller  responsibility  in  this 
matter.  Grave  as  are  the  temporary  embarrassments  which  the 
increased  cost  of  living  is  forcing  upon  them  and  trying  as  is 
the  permanent  distress  of  some  of  them,  yet  as  a  whole  the 
economic  revolution  will  undoubtedly  enlarge  the  earning 
capacity  of  the  native  Christians.  Indeed,  the  new  principles 
of  life  which  the  gospel  brings  should  make  them  among  the 
first  to  profit  by  the  changed  conditions,  and  as  their  wealth  in- 
creases, their  spirit  of  giving  should,  and  under  the  wise  lead- 


286  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

ership  of  the  missionaries  undoubtedly  will,  increase.  For 
these  reasons,  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  took 
the  following  action  July  2,  1900  : — 

"As  having  reference  to  the  question  of  self-support  of  the  native 
churches  on  the  mission  field,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  some  of  its  mis- 
sions are  proposing  to  increase  the  salaries  of  native  preachers  and  helpers 
on  account  of  the  increased  cost  of  living,  the  Board  is  constrained  to  look 
with  no  little  apprehension  upon  the  prospect  of  continuing  and  increasing 
demands  of  foreign  aid  in  proportion  to  the  contributions  made  by  the 
churches  themselves.  Increased  intercourse  of  eastern  nations  with  those 
of  the  west  has  led  and  will  still  further  lead  to  a  gradual  assimilation  to 
western  ways  and  western  prices,  and  unless  the  self-reliant  spirit  of  the 
churches  can  be  stimulated  to  a  proportionate  advance,  there  is  a  sure 
prospect  that  the  drafts  upon  mission  funds  will  be  larger  and  larger  in 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  work  accomplished.  In  view  of  these  con- 
siderations, it  was  resolved  that  the  missions  in  which  such  increase  is 
proposed  be  earnestly  requested  to  arouse  the  churches  to  the  purpose  and 
the  endeavour  to  meet  this  increased  expenditure  instead  of  laying  still 
larger  burdens  upon  the  resources  of  foreign  funds.  The  Board  deems 
this  necessary  not  merely  to  the  interest  of  its  expanding  work  but  to  the 
self-reliant  character,  the  future  stability  and  self-propagating  power  of 
the  churches  themselves." 

There  appears  to  be  no  alternative.  And  yet  this  policy, 
while  adhered  to,  should  be  enforced  with  reasonable  discretion 
and  due  regard  to  "this  present  distress."  How  can  Chris- 
tians, who  can  barely  live  themselves  and  pay  a  half  or  two- 
thirds  of  their  pastor's  present  support,  suddenly  meet  this  call 
for  enlarged  salaries  ?  For  reasons  already  given,  it  is  harder 
for  them  to  make  ends  meet  now  than  it  was  in  the  old  days 
of  primitive  simplicity,  while  in  many  places  a  profession  of 
Christianity  is  followed  by  the  loss  of  property  and  employment 
so  that  the  Christian  is  impoverished  by  the  loss  of  the  income 
that  he  already  had.  In  these  circumstances,  both  boards  and 
missions  must  simply  do  the  best  they  can,  and  neither  allow 
the  emergency  to  sweep  them  into  a  mistaken  charity  that 


Economic  Conditions  287 

would  be  fatal  to  the  ultimate  interests  of  the  cause  nor  allow  a 
valuable  native  worker  to  suffer  for  the  necessaries  of  life. 

"We  need  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  low  salaries  of  China  are  not  the 
product  of  Christianity,  but  of  heathenism,  and  the  ability  to  live  on  five 
or  six  Mexicans  per  month  is  not  the  result  of  a  laudable  economy  un- 
known to  Christian  countries,  so  much  as  it  is  the  result  of  a  degradation 
of  manhood  to  the  level  of  beasts.  The  church  is  responsible  for 
the  knowledge  of  a  better  way  of  living.  We  have  created  the  desire  for 
a  clean  house,  clean  clothing,  healthful  food,  and  books,  on  the  part  of  our 
educated  young  men.  Shall  we  implant  this  desire  for  six  or  eight  years 
and  take  the  rest  of  the  man's  life  in  trying  to  squelch  it  ?  We  have  come 
as  apostles  of  truth  to  a  mighty  empire,  to  the  great  and  the  small,  to  the 
rich  and  the  poor,  and  if  we  had  a  native  ministry  which  could  appeal  to 
a  different  class  of  men  than  most  of  them  are  now  appealing  to,  would 
not  the  day  of  self-support  be  hastened  beyond  what  we  dare  to  hope  ?  Is 
there  not  a  feeling  out  for  something  better  on  the  part  of  the  well-to-do, 
the  more  intelligent,  just  as  really  as  there  is  on  the  part  of  the  lowest 
classes?  Do  not  we  have  a  mission  to  the  man  who  can  pay  $100.00 
a  year  to  the  church  just  as  really  as  to  the  one  who  pays  100  cash  ? 
There  is  nothing  so  costly  as  cheap  men.  Let  us  have  a  higher  grade  of 
men  and  we  shall  have  a  higher  grade  of  church  membership.  Is  it  not 
true  that  nothing  more  stands  in  the  way  of  self-support  than  some  of  our 
native  clergy  ?  We  must  not  turn  down  better  men  because  they  must 
have  a  little  more  to  live  upon  than  poor  men."  • 

It  is  idle,  however,  to  urge  as  a  reason  for  increasing  the  sal- 
aries of  Chinese  ministers  that  a  qualified  Asiatic  can  earn  more 
in  commercial  life  than  in  the  ministry.  Such  arguments  often 
come  to  mission  boards.  But  religious  work  cannot  compete 
with  business  in  financial  inducements  either  at  home  or 
abroad.  It  is  notorious  that  in  America,  ministers  and  church 
workers  generally  do  not  receive  the  compensation  which  they 
could  command  in  secular  employments  or  professions.  The 
qualities  that  bring  success  in  the  ministry  are,  as  a  rule,  far 
more  liberally  remunerated  in  secular  life.     The  preacher  who 

*  Mr.  F.  S.  Brockman,  Address—  "  How  to  Retain  to  the  Church  the 
Services  of  English-Speaking  Christians,"  Shanghai,  1904. 


288  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

can  command  ^6,000  or  $8,000  in  the  pulpit  could  probably 
command  three  or  four  times  that  amount  in  the  law  or  in 
business.  Men  who  are  as  eminent  in  other  professions  and  in 
the  commercial  world  as  the  most  eminent  clergymen  are  in  the 
ministry  usually  have  incomes  ranging  from  $20,000  to  $100,- 
000  a  year  and  have  no  "  dead  line  "  of  age  either.  As  for 
others,  the  Rev.  Dr.  B.  L.  Agnew,  Secretary  of  the  Presbyte- 
rian Board  of  Ministerial  Relief,  is  authority  for  the  statement 
that  the  average  salary  of  Presbyterian  ministers  is  $700  and 
that  for  all  denominations  it  does  not  equal  the  wages  of  the  aver- 
age mechanic.  A  missionary  writes  : — "  Practically  all  our  native 
pastors  are  underpaid."  The  same  thing  might  be  said  of  all 
the  home  missionaries  and  of  most  of  the  pastors  of  non-mis- 
sionary churches  at  home,  one-third  of  whom  receive  only 
$500  or  less. 

The  churches  of  America  cannot,  or  at  any  rate  will  not,  do 
for  the  native  ministers  of  Asia  what  they  are  not  doing  for 
their  own  ministers.  The  world  over,  the  rewards  of  Christ's 
service  are  not  financial.  Those  who  seek  that  service  must  be 
content  with  modest  support,  sometimes  even  with  poverty. 
This  is  not  a  reason  for  the  home  churches  to  be  content  with 
their  present  scale  of  missionary  giving,  nor  does  it  mean  that 
mission  boards  are  disposed  to  refuse  requests  for  appropria- 
tions. The  boards  are  straining  every  nerve  to  secure  a  more 
generous  support  and  they  will  gladly  send  all  they  can  to  the 
missions  on  the  field.  But  it  is  a  reason  for  impressing  more 
strongly  upon  the  young  men  in  the  churches  of  Asia  that  they 
should  consecrate  themselves  to  the  Master's  service  from  a 
higher  motive  than  financial  support  and  that  while  the  boards 
will  continue  to  give  all  the  assistance  that  is  in  their  power, 
yet  that  the  permanent  dependence  of  the  ministers  of  China 
must  be  in  increasing  measure  upon  the  Christians  of  China  and 
not  upon  the  Christians  of  America.  Hundreds  of  native  pas- 
tors are  already  realizing  this  and  are  manifesting  a  self-sacrific- 
ing courage  and  devotion  that  are  beyond  all  praise.     Said  Mr. 


Economic  Conditions  289 

Fitch  of  Ningpo  to  a  Chinese  youth  of  fine  education  and  ex- 
ceptional ability: — "Suppose  a  business  man  should  offer  you 
^100.00  a  month  and  at  the  same  time  you  had  the  way  opened 
to  you  to  study  for  the  ministry,  and  after  entering  it,  to  get 
from  $20.00  to  $30.00  a  month,  which  would  you  take?" 
And  the  youth  answered — "  I  would  enter  the  ministry." 
"He  is  now  teaching  a  mission  school  at  $12.00  a  month, 
though  he  could  easily  command  $30.00  a  month  in  a  business 
position."  The  hope  of  the  churches  of  China  is  in  such  men. 
Mr.  F.  S.  Brockman  declares  : — 

"There  is  a  wide-spread  conviction  among  missionaries  that  the  allure- 
ments of  wealth  alone  are  keeping  English-speaking  young  men  from  the 
ministry.  The  facts  do  not  bear  out  this  belief.  ...  In  order  to  hold 
them  in  the  ministry  we  need  not  appeal  to  their  love  of  money.  It  is 
death  to  the  ministry  when  we  do  it;  we  have  opened  the  vial  of  their 
fiercest  passion ;  we  are  doing  what  Jesus  Christ  never  did ;  we  are  work- 
ing absolutely  contrary  to  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
.  .  .  We  must  teach  prospective  ministers  to  look  upon  their  lives  as 
an  unselfish  expenditure  of  God-given  power.  For  once  make  the  allure- 
ment of  the  ministry  the  allurement  of  comfort,  ease,  or  wealth,  and  we 
have  closed  up  every  fountain  of  the  minister's  power." 


T 


XXIV 

COMITY  AND  COOPERATION 

HE  Hon.  Charles  Denby,  then  United  States  Minis- 
ter at  Peking,  wrote  in  1900:  — 


"  With  all  due  deference  to  the  great  missionary  societie, 
who  have  these  matters  in  charge,  my  judgment  is  that  missionary  work 
in  China  has  been  overdone.  Take  Peking  as  an  example.  There  are  lo- 
cated at  Peking  the  following  Protestant  missions :  American  Boards 
American  Presbyterian,  American  Methodist,  Christian  and  Missionary 
Alliance,  International  Y.  M.  C,  A.,  London  Missionary  Society,  Society 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel,  International  Institute,  Mission  for  Chi- 
nese Blind,  Scotch  Bible  Society,  and  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of 
Christian  Knowledge.  To  these  must  be  added  the  Church  of  England 
Mission,  the  English  Baptist  Mission  and  the  Swedish  Mission.  The 
above  list  shows  that  of  American  societies  alone  there  are  seven  in  Pe- 
king, not  counting  the  Peking  University,  and  that  all  western  Powers 
taken  collectively  were  represented  by  about  twenty  missions.  A  careful 
study  of  the  situation  would  seem  to  suggest  that  no  two  American  socie- 
ties should  occupy  the  same  district."  * 

It  may  be  well  to  examine  this  criticism,  partly  because  it 
was  made  by  an  able  man  of  known  sympathy  with  mission 
work,  and  partly  because  it  relates  to  the  city  where,  if  any- 
where, in  China,  overcrowding  exists.  In  considering  Peking, 
therefore,  we  are  really  considering  the  broad  question  of  the 
practicability  of  withdrawing  some  missionary  agencies  in  the 
interest  of  comity  and  efficiency.  The  Presbyterian  missiona- 
ries themselves  opened  the  way  for  the  discussion  of  the 
question  by  proposing  to  the  Congregational  missionaries,  after 
the  Boxer  uprising  had  been  quelled,  "  an  exchange  of  all  work 

1  Missionary  Review  of  the  World,  October,  1900, 
290 


Comity  and  Cooperation  291 

and  fields  of  our  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  province  of 
Chih-li  in  return  for  the  work  and  fields  of  the  American 
Board  in  the  province  of  Shantung,  subject  to  the  approval  of 
our  respective  Boards. ' '     The  Mission  added  :  — 

"  It  means  no  little  sacrifice  to  sever  attachments  made  in  long  years  of 
service  in  fields  and  among  a  people  whom  God  has  enabled  us  to  lead  to 
Christ,  but  we  feel  that  a  high  spirit  of  loyalty  to  Christ  and  His  cause,  in- 
spiring all  concerned,  will  lead  us  to  set  aside  personal  preferences  and 
attachments,  if  thereby  the  greater  interests  of  His  Church  in  China  can  be 
conserved." 

The  whole  question  was  thoroughly  discussed  during  my 
visit  in  Peking.  Much  time  was  spent  traversing  the  entire 
ground.  Then  a  meeting  was  called  of  the  leading  missionaries 
of  all  the  Protestant  agencies  represented  in  Peking. 

The  result  of  all  these  conferences  was  the  unanimous  and 
emphatic  judgment  of  the  missionaries  of  all  the  boards  con- 
cerned that  there  is  not  "  a  congestion  of  missionary  societies 
in  Peking,"  and  that  no  one  board  could  be  spared  without 
serious  injury  to  the  cause.  In  reply  to  the  proposal  of  the 
Presbyterian  missionaries,  the  North  China  Mission  of  the 
American  Board  wrote  — 

"  After  considering  the  matter  in  all  its  bearings  we  are  constrained  to 
say  that  we  contemplate  with  regret  any  plan  which  looks  to  the  with- 
drawal of  the  Presbyterian  Mission  from  the  field  which  they  have  so  long 
occupied  in  northern  Chih-li.  We  think  that  instead  of  illustrating  comity 
this  would  appear  as  if  comity  was  not  to  be  attained  without  a  violent 
dislocation  from  long-established  foundations,  and  that  in  this  particular 
there  would  be  a  definite  loss  all  around.  .  .  .  We  further  deprecate  the 
proposed  step  because  there  is  now  an  excellent  opportunity  for  the  adoption 
of  actual  measures  of  cooperation  between  our  respective  missions.  .  .  . 
We  are  ready  to  readjust  boundaries  in  such  a  way  as  to  remedy  the  waste 
of  effort  in  the  crossing  of  one  another's  territory.  .  .  .  We  are  confident 
that  the  ultimate  outcome  could  not  fail  to  be  a  greater  benefit  than  the  sud- 
den rupture  of  long-existing  relations  for  the  sake  of  mere  geographical 
contiguity  of  the  work  of  missions  like  yours  and  ours,  each  keeping  its  own 
district,  careful  not  to  encroach  upon  the  other.     In  the  higher  unity  here 


292  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

suggested  we  should  expect  to  realize  larger  results  in  the  promotion  of 
comity  not  only,  but  also  in  the  best  interests  of  that  kingdom  of  God  for 
which  we  are  each  labouring. 

"  Arthur  A.  Smith, 
"  D.  Z.  Sheffield, 

"  Committee." 

Moreover,  several  of  the  agencies  enumerated  by  Colonel 
Denby,  such  as  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  the  International  Institute, 
the  Mission  to  the  Blind,  the  various  Bible  Societies,  and  the 
Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Christian  Knowledge,  are  not 
competing  missionary  agencies  at  all,  but  are  doing  a  special 
work  along  such  separate  lines  that  it  is  unfair  to  take  them 
into  consideration.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  with  the  exception  of 
a  comparatively  small  work  by  the  Society  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Gospel,  the  real  missionary  work  in  Peking  is  being  done 
by  only  four  Boards, — The  American,  Methodist,  London,  and 
Presbyterian.  This  is  not  a  disproportionate  number,  consider- 
ing the  fact  that  Peking  is  one  of  the  great  cities  of  the  world 
and  the  capital  of  the  Empire.  It  is  of  the  utmost  importance 
that  a  strong  Christian  influence  should  be  exerted  in  such  a 
centre.  Indeed,  if  there  is  any  place  in  all  China  where  this  in- 
fluence ought  to  be  intensified,  it  is  Peking.  It  is  granted  that 
Christian  work  is  more  difficult  in  a  great  city,  that  it  is  harder 
to  convert  a  man  there  than  in  a  country  village.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  is  more  influential  when  he  is  converted. 
Peking  is  the  heart  of  China.  Alone  of  all  its  cities,  it  is 
visited  sooner  or  later  by  every  ambitious  scholar  and  promi- 
nent official.  The  examinations  for  the  higher  degrees  bring 
to  it  myriads  of  the  brightest  young  men  of  the  country.  The 
moral  effect  of  a  strong  Christian  Church  in  Peking  will  be  felt 
in  every  province.  If  Christianity  is  to  be  a  positive  regenera- 
tive force  in  China  it  cannot  afford  to  weaken  its  hold  in  the 
very  citadel  of  China's  power. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  work  of  the  missionaries 
stationed  at  Peking  is  not  confined  to  the  city,  but  that  Peking 


Comity  and  Cooperation  293 

is  a  base  from  which  they  work  out  on  the  east  and  south  till 
they  reach  the  boundaries  of  the  Tien-tsin  and  Paoting-fu 
station  fields,  while  on  the  north  and  west  a  vast  and  populous 
region  for  an  indefinite  distance  is  wholly  dependent  upon  them 
for  Christian  teaching.  Extensive  and  densely  inhabited  areas 
of  the  province  are  not  being  worked  by  any  board.  The  Rev. 
Dr.  John  Wherry,  who  has  lived  there  for  a  generation,  says 
that  there  are  a  hundred  times  as  many  people  in  the  Peking 
region  as  are  now  being  reached,  and  that  there  are  20,000,000 
in  the  province  who  have  never  yet  heard  of  Christ.  For  this 
enormous  field  the  missionary  agencies  now  at  work  are  really 
few.  Hundreds  of  American  cities  of  half  a  million  inhabitants 
have  a  greater  number  of  ordained  workers  than  this  entire 
province  of  Chih-li  with  a  population  nearly  half  as  large  as  that 
of  the  United  States.  Indeed  there  is  room  for  a  great  exten- 
sion of  the  work  without  overcrowding. 

Each  denomination  occupies  a  large  and  distinct  geographical 
field  in  this  province.  For  example,  all  that  portion  of  the  city 
and  suburbs  of  Peking  north  of  the  line  of  the  Forbidden  City, 
with  a  population  of  about  200,000,  is  considered  Presby- 
terian territory.  No  other  missionaries  are  located  in 
that  part  of  Peking.  In  the  country,  the  counties  of  San-ho, 
Huai-jou,  Pao-ti,  to  the  north  and  east  of  Peking,  are  also  un- 
derstood to  be  distinctively  Presbyterian  ground.  San-ho 
County  alone  is  said  to  have  1,200  towns  and  villages,  while 
the  other  counties  are  also  very  populous.  No  other  Protestant 
denomination  is  working  in  any  of  these  counties.  At  Pao- 
ting-fu, the  Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians  have  made  a 
division  of  the  field,  the  former  taking  everything  south  of  a 
line  drawn  through  the  centre  of  the  city  and  the  latter  every- 
thing north  of  that  line.  Each  denomination  thus  has  wholly 
to  itself  half  the  city  of  Paoting-fu  and  about  a  dozen  outlying 
counties. 

The  missionaries  of  the  three  other  boards  concerned  plainly 
stated  that,  in  the  event  of  the  withdrawal  of  the  Presbyterians, 


294  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

they  would  not  be  able  to  care  for  the  work  that  would  be  left. 
They  declared  that  they  were  not  able  adequately  to  sustain 
the  work  they  already  had  and  that  there  was  not  the  slightest 
reason  to  hope  that  their  home  boards  would  find  it  possible  to 
give  them  the  reinforcements  in  men  and  money  which  would 
be  required  if  their  present  responsibilities  were  to  be  increased. 
The  large  district  now  occupied  by  any  given  board  would  sim- 
ply be  vacated  if  its  missionaries  were  transferred  to  other  re- 
gions. The  ties  formed  with  the  Chinese  Christians  and  peo- 
ple in  more  than  a  generation  of  continuous  missionary  work 
would  be  broken  and  the  influence  acquired  by  faithful  mis- 
sionaries in  long  years  of  toil  would  be  lost. 

In  these  circumstances,  would  it  be  right  for  any  one  of 
these  four  boards  to  withdraw  ?  There  will,  indeed,  come  a 
time  when  it  will  be  the  duty  of  the  missionary  to  leave  the 
Chinese  church  to  itself.  But  is  this  the  time  to  go,  when  the 
native  church,  instead  of  being  strong  and  able  to  care  for 
itself,  is  torn  and  bleeding  after  frightful  persecution  ?  These 
Christians  look  to  the  missionaries,  who  have  hitherto  led  them, 
as  spiritual  fathers  who  will  guide  them  in  the  future.  They 
feel  that  the  time  has  come  for  a  new  consecration  to  the  task 
of  evangelizing  all  their  people.  As  directed  by  the  mission- 
aries, they  may  become  a  great  influence  for  the  conversion 
of  their  countrymen.  Should  they  be  left  when  other  mission- 
aries expressly  state  that  they  cannot  care  for  them  ? 

The  question  of  closer  cooperation,  however,  is  worthy  of 
careful  consideration.  At  a  conference  of  representatives  of 
foreign  mission  boards  of  the  United  States  and  Canada  hav- 
ing work  in  China,  held  in  New  York,  September  21,  1900, 
the  following  resolution  w^as  unanimously  adopted  ; 

"  It  is  the  judgment  of  this  conference  that  the  resumption  of  mission 
work  in  those  parts  of  China  where  it  has  been  interrupted  would  afford  a 
favourable  opportunity  for  putting  into  practice  some  of  the  principles  of 
mission  comity  which  have  been  approved  by  a  general  concensus  of 
opinion  among  missionaries  and  boards,  especially  in  regard  to  the  over- 


Comity  and  Cooperation  295 

lapping  of  fields  and  such  work  as  printing  and  publishing,  higher  educa- 
tion and  hospital  work,  and  the  conference  would  commend  the  subject 
to  the  favourable  consideration  and  action  of  the  various  boards  and  their 
miisionaries." 

Christian  America,  which  ought  to  set  the  example  of 
comity,  is  distractingly  divided.  Should  it  not  learn  some- 
thing from  its  experience  at  home  and,  as  far  as  possible,  or- 
ganize its  work  abroad  in  such  a  way  as  to  avoid  perpetuating 
unnecessary  divisions  ?  Should  it  not  at  least  carefully  con- 
sider whether  a  limited  force  cannot  be  used  to  better  advan- 
tage for  China  and  for  Christ  ?  I  admire  the  ingenuity  of  those 
at  home  who  can  find  good  reasons  for  having  half  a  dozen  de- 
nominations in  a  town  of  a  few  thousand  inhabitants.  But  on 
the  foreign  field,  we  should  adopt  a  different  policy.  In  the 
large  cities — the  Londons,  and  Berlins,  and  New  Yorks,  and 
Chicagos,  of  Asia,  it  is  conceded  that  more  than  one  Board 
may  properly  work.  But  with  such  exceptions,  it  should  be 
the  rule  not  to  enter  fields  where  other  evangelical  bodies  are 
already  established.  Indeed  it  is  already  the  rule.  The 
Shanghai  Conference  of  1900  voted  that  missionary  agencies 
should  not  be  multiplied  in  small  places,  though  that  cities  of 
prefectural  rank  should  not  be  considered  the  exclusive  terri- 
tory of  any  one  board.  The  American  Presbyterian  Board  de- 
clared in  1900,  and  its  action  was  specifically  approved  by  the 
General  Assembly  of  that  year  : — "  The  time  has  come  for  a 
larger  union  and  cooperation  in  mission  work,  and  where 
church  union  cannot  be  attained,  the  Board  and  the  missions 
will  seek  such  divisions  of  territory  as  will  leave  as  large  dis- 
tricts as  possible  to  the  exclusive  care  and  development  of  sep- 
arate agencies." 

In  several  places,  boards  and  missions  are  moving  actively  in 
this  direction.  In  1902,  the  American  and  Presbyterian  Boards 
entered  into  a  union  in  educational  work  in  the  province  of 
Chih-li  by  which  the  Presbyterians  conduct  a  union  boarding- 
school  for  girls  in  Paoting-fu  and  for  boys  in  Peking,  while  the 


296  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Congregationalists  educate  the  boys  of  both  denominations  in 
Paoting-fu  and  the  girls  in  Peking.  A  medical  college  in 
Peking  was  agreed  upon  in  1903,  to  be  supported  and  taught 
jointly  by  the  London,  American  and  Presbyterian  missions. 
In  the  province  of  Shantung,  a  notable  union  in  both  educa- 
tional and  medical  work  was  effected  in  1903  between  English 
Baptists  and  American  Presbyterians.  Instead  of  developing 
duplicate  institutions  with  all  the  large  expenditure  of  men  and 
money  that  would  be  involved,  the  boards  and  missions  con- 
cerned are  uniting  in  the  development  of  the  Shantung  Prot- 
estant University  with  the  Arts  College  on  the  Presbyterian 
compound  at  Wei-hsien  and  the  Theological  and  Normal 
School  on  the  Baptist  compound  at  Ching-chou-fu.  The 
medical  class  will  be  taught  alternately  at  the  Baptist  and  Pres- 
byterian stations  until  funds  warrant  the  erection  of  suitable 
buildings,  probably  at  Chinan-fu,  the  capital  of  the  province.  In 
Shanghai,  the  Northern  and  Southern  Methodists  established  a 
union  publishing  house  in  1902,  and  in  several  other  parts  of 
China,  plans  for  union  of  various  kinds  are  being  discussed. 

All  these  enterprises  met  with  opposition  at  first.  There  was, 
indeed,  little  objection  to  union  in  medical  education,  for  few 
questions  of  a  denominational  character  are  involved  in  the 
training  of  medical  students.  But  it  was  urged  by  some  that 
it  would  not  be  expedient  to  press  consolidation  in  educational 
work,  as  the  chief  object  of  such  work  was  held  to  be  the 
training  of  a  native  ministry  and  each  mission  could  best  educate 
its  own  helpers  and  should  do  so  in  the  interest  of  self-preser- 
vation. The  example  of  the  Meiji  Gakuin  in  Tokio,  Japan, 
which  is  supported  by  the  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Boards, 
was  not  deemed  determinative  as  in  Japan  but  one  native 
church  is  involved,  so  that  the  cases  are  not  parallel.  More- 
over, it  was  thought  that  in  a  large  school  there  would  not  be  as 
good  an  opportunity  for  that  close  personal  contact  between 
missionary  and  pupil  which  is  so  desirable. 

These  difficulties,  however,  are  believed  by  many  of  the  mis- 


Comity  and  Cooperation  297 

sionaries  to  be  more  theoretical  than  practical,  or,  at  any  rate, 
not  sufficiently  formidable  to  prevent  a  more  effective  coopera- 
tion. No  plan  will  be  free  from  all  objections  and  a  good  effort 
should  not  be  abandoned  because  they  are  found  to  confront 
it.  The  defects  in  union  are  less  grave  than  those  that  ex- 
perience has  shown  to  be  inherent  in  the  old  method  of  numer- 
ous weak  and  struggling  institutions  whose  support  requires  a 
ruinous  proportion  of  the  mission  force  and  the  mission  funds 
that  might  otherwise  be  available,  in  part  at  least,  for  the  en- 
largement of  the  evangelistic  work.  "  It  certainly  seems  un- 
necessary that  two  missions  should  maintain  distinct  high 
schools  looking  towards  a  college  grade  side  by  side,  when  the 
whole  number  of  pupils  in  both  could  be  instructed  more 
economically  and  perhaps  more  efficiently  in  one  institution." 

Nor  is  this  all,  for,  wherever  practicable,  union  of  allied 
churches  is  being  sought.  I  know  we  are  told  that  Christ's 
words  do  not  call  for  this.  But  when  I  hear  the  laboured  argu- 
ments which  defend  the  splitting  of  American  Presbyterianism 
into  more  than  a  dozen  sects,  I  sympathize  with  the  child  who, 
after  a  sermon  in  which  the  minister  had  eloquently  urged  that 
the  unity  for  which  the  Lord  prayed  was  consistent  with 
separation,  said :  "  Mamma,  if  Christ  didn't  mean  what  He 
said,  why  didn't  He  say  what  He  meant?  " 

Premature  and  impracticable  efforts  should  indeed  be 
avoided.  The  deeply  rooted  differences  of  centuries  are  not  to 
be  eradicated  in  a  day.  We  must  feel  our  way  along  with 
caution  and  wisdom.  To  attempt  too  much  at  first  would  be 
to  accomplish  nothing.  Work  abroad  is  necessarily  a  projection 
of  the  work  at  home  and  it  will  be  more  or  less  hampered  by 
our  American  divisions.  A  prominent  clergyman  told  me  that 
he  doubted  the  wisdom  of  a  union  of  the  Asiatic  churches  as  he 
feared  that  such  a  union  would  weaken  the  sense  of  responsi- 
bility of  the  home  churches.  He  thought  that  a  denomination 
in  America  would  take  a  deeper  interest  in  a  comparatively 
small  native  church  wholly  dependent  upon  it  than  it  would  in 


298  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

an  indeterminate  part  of  a  larger  church.  Must  the  unity  of 
the  foreign  church  be  sacrificed  to  the  divisions  of  the  home 
church  ?  Perhaps  there  is  some  ground  for  anticipating  such 
objections  from  home.  But  if  they  are  found  to  exist,  we 
should  not  cease  seeking  union  in  Asia,  but  begin  preaching 
juster  views  in  America. 

I  must  not  be  understood  as  depreciating  the  historic  dif- 
ferences of  Christendom.  I  am  aware  that  each  of  the 
great  religious  bodies  stands  for  some  cardinal  principle  that 
is  not  emphasized  to  the  same  degree  by  others.  The  free- 
dom of  any  given  number  of  believers  to  witness  to  a  specific 
truth  should  not  be  and  need  not  be  limited  by  union. 
The  contention  here  is  that  the  differences  of  the  West 
should  not  be  forced  upon  the  East  but  that  the  churches  of 
Asia  should  be  given  a  fair  chance  to  develop  a  unity  large 
enough  to  comprehend  these  various  forms.  If  they  must  be 
divided,  let  them  separate  later  along  their  own  lines  of 
cleavage,  not  on  lines  extended  from  western  nations.  In  one 
place,  I  met  a  swarthy  Asiatic  who  knew  just  enough  English 
to  be  able  to  tell  me  that  he  was  a  Scotch  Presbyterian.  Are 
we  then  to  have  a  Scotch  Presbyterian  Church  in  Asia,  and  a 
Canadian  Presbyterian  Church,  and  an  Australian  Presby- 
terian Church  ?  Is  the  American  Civil  War  forever  to  divide 
communities  of  Chinese  believers  into  American  Northern 
Presbyterians  and  American  Southern  Presbyterians?  Why 
should  we  force  our  unhappy  quarrel  of  a  generation  ago 
upon  them?  The  American  Presbyterian  Board  has  truly 
declared  that  "the  object  of  the  foreign  missionary  enterprise 
is  not  to  perpetuate  on  the  mission  field  the  denominational 
distinctions  of  Christendom  but  to  build  up  on  Scriptural  lines 
and  according  to  Scriptural  principles  and  methods  the 
Kingdom  of  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  It  has  advised  all  its 
missions  that  "we  encourage  as  far  as  practicable  the  forma- 
tion of  union  churches  in  which  the  results  of  the  mission 
work  of  all  allied  evangelical  churches  should  be  gathered,  and 


Comity  and  Cooperation  299 

that  they  (the  missions)  observe  everywhere  the  most  generous 
principles  of  missionary  comity."  The  specific  approval  of 
this  declaration,  by  the  General  Assembly  of  1900,  makes  this 
the  authoritative  policy  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 
United  States  of  America. 

In  harmony  with  this  general  position,  several  significant 
efforts  towards  union  are  being  made.  The  first  movements, 
naturally,  are  towards  a  union  of  communions  that  are  sub- 
stantially alike  in  polity  and  doctrine.  Already  all  the  Pres- 
byterian and  Reformed  Boards  operating  in  Japan,  Korea, 
Mexico  and  India  have  joined  in  the  support  of  a  united  native 
church  in  those  lands,  and  similar  movements  are  in  progress 
in  other  lands  and  in  several  churches,  notably  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  and  the  Methodist  Episcopal.  In  China,  the 
representatives  of  the  eight  Presbyterian  denominations  of 
Europe  and  America  have  met  in  loving  conference  and 
planned  to  unite  all  the  native  Christians  connected  with  their 
respective  missions  into  one  magnificent  and  commanding 
Church. 

And  now  unions  of  wholly  different  denominations  are  being 
discussed.  The  American  Board  missionaries  intimated  to  the 
Presbyterian  Mission  in  1901  that  there  might  be  "no  inherent 
difficulty  in  uniting  the  membership  of  the  Presbyterian  and 
Congregational  churches  in  Chih-li  in  one  common  body."  A 
similar  question  is  being  informally  discussed  by  the  American 
Presbyterian  missionaries  and  those  of  the  English  Baptist 
Mission  in  Shantung.  The  fellowship  between  the  two  bodies 
there,  as  between  Presbyterians  and  Congregationalists  in 
Chih-li,  is  close. 

The  local  difficulties  do  not  appear  to  be  serious.  An 
English  Baptist  missionary  frankly  stated  in  an  open  conference 
of  missionaries  of  various  boards  in  Chefoo,  that  his  mission, 
with  the  full  knowledge  of  the  home  society,  took  the  position 
that  the  Chinese  Christians  are  not  yet  fit  for  congregational 
government,   being,  as  a  rule,  comparatively  ignorant  farmers 


300  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

just  out  of  heathenism  ;  that  it  had  been  found  necessary  to 
select  the  best  men  in  a  local  church  and  give  them  powers 
which,  for  all  practical  purposes,  constituted  them  a  session, 
and  that  the  native  church  as  a  whole  was  being  more  and 
more  directed  by  a  body  consisting  of  representatives  from  such 
sessions.  An  American  Board  missionary  told  me  substantially 
the  same  thing  regarding  the  churches  of  his  mission.  We 
should  not  infer  too  much  from  such  admissions.  Both  Bap- 
tists and  Congregationalists  are  loyally  attached  to  their  in- 
dependent policy.  Both  referred,  of  course,  to  the  temporary 
adaptions  necessary  in  the  present  stage  of  mission  work. 
As  for  Presbyterians,  their  Board's  Committee  on  Policy  and 
Methods  declared,  March  6,  1899  :  — 

"  It  is  inexpedient  to  give  formal  organization  to  churches  and  Presby- 
teries after  American  models  unless  there  is  manifest  need  therefor,  and 
such  forms  are  shown  to  be  best  adapted  to  the  people  and  circumstances. 
In  general,  the  ends  of  the  work  will  be  best  attained  by  simple  and 
flexible  organizations  adapted  to  the  characteristic  and  real  needs  of  the 
people  and  designed  to  develop  and  utilize  spiritual  power  rather  than 
merely  or  primarily  to  secure  proper  ecclesiastical  procedure." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  neither  the  representative  nor  the  inde- 
pendent forms  of  church  government  are  yet  in  unmodified 
operation  on  any  mission  fields,  except  perhaps  in  Japan,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  the  typical  foreign  missionary  has  thus 
far  necessarily  exercised  the  functions  of  a  superintendent  or 
bishop  of  the  native  churches.  Undoubtedly,  however,  the 
Asiatic  churches  are  being  educated  to  expect  self-government 
as  soon  as  they  are  competent  to  exercise  it. 

Doctrinal  differences  may  present  greater  difficulties.  And 
yet  there  is  a  remarkable  unanimity  of  teaching  among  the 
missionaries  of  the  various  denominations  in  China.  However 
widely  they  may  differ  among  themselves,  nearly  all  agree  in 
preaching  to  the  Chinese  the  great  central  truths  of  Christianity 
so  that  most  of  the  native  Christians  know  little  of  the  sectarian 


Comity  and  Cooperation  301 

distinctions  that  are  so  well-understood  in  America.  Such 
differences  as  are  necessary  in  China  might  be  provided  for  by 
recognizing  the  liberty  of  the  local  church  and  the  individual 
believer  to  hold  whichever  phase  of  the  truth  might  be  pre- 
ferred. The  China  Inland  Mission  has  shown  that  this  plan 
is  feasible.  It  is  composed  of  missionaries  of  all  Protestant 
denominations,  but  they  work  in  harmony  and  build  up  a 
Chinese  church  by  recognizing  the  right  of  brethren  to  differ 
in  the  same  organization. 

Doubtless  isolated  cases  of  embarrassment  would  occur,  but 
they  would  be  insignificant  in  comparison  with  the  embarrass- 
ments inherent  in  sectarian  divisions.  Denominational  uni- 
formity is  bought  at  bitter  cost  when  it  separates  Christians 
into  rival  camps.  Unity  in  essentials  and  liberty  in  non-essen- 
tials are  far  better  than  a  slavery  to  non-essentials  which 
destroys  that  oneness  of  believers  for  which  our  Lord  prayed. 
In  the  presence  of  a  vast  heathen  population,  let  Christians  at 
least  remember  that  their  points  of  disagreement  are  less  vital 
than  their  points  of  agreement,  that  Christianity  should,  as  far 
as  possible,  present  a  solid  front,  and  let  them  devoutly  join 
the  Conference  of  Protestant  missionaries  in  Japan  in  the  ring- 
ing proclamation  : — "  That  all  those  who  are  one  with  Christ  by 
faith  are  one  body,  and  that  all  who  love  the  Lord  Jesus  and 
His  Church  in  sincerity  and  truth  should  pray  and  labour  for 
the  full  realization  of  such  a  corporate  oneness  as  the  Master 
Himself  prayed  for  in  the  night  in  which  He  was  betrayed." 

It  is  true  that  an  advanced  position  on  comity  sometimes 
operates  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  denomination  that  espouses 
it.  But  let  us  be  true  to  our  ideals  even  if  some  whom  we  might 
have  reached  do  go  to  heaven  by  another  route.  Other 
churches  are  preaching  the  gospel  and  those  who  accept  it 
at  their  hands  will  be  saved.  We  are  in  Asia  to  preach 
Christ,  to  preach  Him  as  we  understand  Him,  but  if  any 
one  else  insists  on  preaching  Him  in  a  given  place  and 
will   do   so   with   equal    fidelity  to    His   divinity  and  atone- 


302  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

ment,  let  us  cooperate  with  them,  or  federate  with  them,  or 
combine  with  them,  or  give  up  the  field  to  them,  as  the  circum- 
stances may  require.  The  problem  before  us  is  not  simply 
where  we  can  do  good,  but  where  we  can  do  the  most  good, 
how  use  to  the  best  advantage  the  limited  resources  at  our 
command.  Givers  at  home  have  a  right  to  demand  this. 
Many  of  their  gifts  involve  self-sacrifice,  and  they  should  be 
used  where  a  real  need  exists.  "  There  remains  yet  very  much 
land  to  be  possessed."  I  have  seen  enough  of  it  to  burden  my 
heart  as  long  as  I  live,  toiling,  sorrowing,  sin-laden  multitudes, 
who  might  be  better  Christians  than  we  are  if  they  had  our 
chance,  but  who  are  scattered  abroad  as  sheep  having  no  shep- 
herd. And  shall  we  multiply  missionaries  in  places  already 
occupied  and  dispute  as  to  who  shall  preach  in  a  given  field, 
when  these  millions  are  dying  without  the  gospel  ? 


PART   V 

The  Future  of  China  And  Our  Relation 

To  It 


/ 


XXV 

IS  THERE  A  YELLOW  PERIL 

WILL  China  ever  be  able  to  menace  the  nations  of 
the  West  ?  This  is  the  startling  question  that  many 
sober-minded  men  are  asking.  Some  writers,  in- 
deed, make  light  of  the  "yellow  peril,"  characterizing  it  "  a 
mere  bugaboo  of  an  excited  imagination,"  because,  as  they 
allege,  China  has  neither  the  organization  nor  the  valour  to 
fight  Europe,  and  because,  if  it  had,  it  could  not  transport  its 
army  and  navy  so  vast  a  distance. 

But  surely  organization  and  valour  can  be  acquired  by  the 
Chinese  as  well  as  by  any  other  people.  Their  present  help- 
lessness before  the  aggressive  foreigner  is  rapidly  teaching  them 
the  necessity  for  the  former.  As  for  the  latter,  it  is  well  known 
that  the  most  dangerous  fighter  is  the  strong  but  peaceably- 
disposed  man  who  has  been  goaded  to  desperation  by  long- 
continued  insult  and  injustice.  Americans  may  discreetly  re- 
member that  they  themselves  were  once  sneeringly  described 
as  "a.  nation  of  shopkeepers  who  wouldn't  and  couldn't 
fight." 

It  is  easy  to  be  deceived  by  the  result  of  the  China-Japan 
War  of  1894.  The  Japanese  were  successful,  not  because  they 
are  abler,  but  because  they  had  more  swiftly  responded  to  the 
touch  of  the  modern  world  and  had  organized  their  govern- 
ment, their  army  and  their  navy  in  accordance  with  scientific 
methods.  More  bulky  and  phlegmatic  China  was  caught  nap- 
ping by  her  enterprising  enemy.  Despising  the  profession  of 
arms,  China  gave  her  energies  to  scholarship  and  commerce, 
and  filled  her  regiments  and  ships  with  paupers,  criminals  and 
opium  fiends,  who  were  as  destitute  of  courage,  intelligence 

305 


306  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

and  patriotism  as  the  darky  who  explained  his  flight  from  the 
battle-field  by  saying  that  he  would  rather  be  a  live  coward 
than  a  dead  hero.  As  for  the  men  above  them,  a  Chinese  offi- 
cer admitted  to  a  friend  of  mine  that  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  with  Japan,  the  army  contractors  bought  a  lot  of  old  rifles 
in  Germany,  which  had  long  before  been  discarded  as  worth- 
less by  the  German  army,  paying  two  ounces  of  silver  for  each 
gun,  and  thriftily  charging  the  Government  nine  ounces.  Then 
they  bought  a  cargo  of  cartridges  that  did  not  fit  the  guns  and 
that  had  been  lying  in  damp  cellars  for  twenty  years,  and  put 
the  whole  equipment  into  the  hands  of  raw  recruits  commanded 
by  opium-smokers. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the  Chinese  were  worsted 
before  the  onset  of  the  wide-awake  Japanese,  and  that  the 
unorganized  mobs  with  which  they  blindly  tried  to  drive  out 
foreigners  in  1900  were  easily  crushed  by  the  armies  of  the 
West.  But  it  would  be  folly  to  imagine  that  this  is  the  end. 
It  takes  a  nation  of  426,000,000  phlegmatic  people  longer  to 
get  under  way  than  a  nation  of  43,000,000  nervous  people, 
but  when  they  do  get  started,  their  momentum  is  proportion- 
ately greater.  China  has  plenty  of  men  who  can  fight,  and 
when  they  are  well  commanded,  they  make  as  good  soldiers  as 
there  are  in  the  world,  as  "Chinese  Gordon"  showed.  Was 
not  his  force  called  the  "  Ever  Victorious  Army,"  because  it 
was  never  defeated  ?  Did  not  Lord  Charles  Beresford,  of  the 
English  navy,  say,  after  personal  inspection  of  many  of  the 
troops  of  China  : — "  I  am  convinced  that  properly  armed,  dis- 
ciplined and  led,  there  could  be  no  better  material  than  the 
Chinese  soldiers"?  Did  not  Admiral  Dewey  report  that  the 
fifty  Chinese  who  served  under  him  in  the  battle  of  Manila  Bay 
fought  so  magnificently  that  they  proved  themselves  equal  in 
courage  to  American  sailors  and  that  they  should  be  made 
American  citizens  by  special  enactment  ?  During  my  tour  of 
Asia,  I  saw  the  soldiers  of  England,  France,  Germany,  Italy, 
Austria,  Belgium,  Russia,  America  and  Japan.    But  the  Chinese 


Is  There  a  Yellow  Peril  307 

cavalrymen  of  Governor  Yuan  Shih  Kai,  whom  I  have  de- 
scribed elsewhere/  were  as  fine  troops  as  I  saw  anywhere. 
They  would  be  a  foe  not  to  be  despised.  When  Bishop  Potter 
returned  from  his  tour  of  Asia,  he  declared  that  "when  Japan 
has  taught  China  the  art  of  war,  neither  England  nor  Russia 
nor  Germany  will  decide  the  fate  of  the  East." 

It  is  odd  that  any  intelligent  person  should  suppose  that  dis- 
tance is  an  effectual  barrier  against  an  aroused  and  organized 
Asia.  It  is  no  farther  from  China  to  Europe  than  from  Europe 
to  China,  and  Europe  has  not  found  the  distance  a  barrier  to 
its  designs  on  China.  England,  Germany,  France,  Russia, 
and  even  little  Holland  and  Portugal,  have  all  managed  to 
send  ships  and  troops  to  the  Far  East,  to  seize  territory  and  to 
subjugate  the  inhabitants.  Why  should  it  be  deemed  impos- 
sible for  China,  which  alone  is  larger  than  all  these  nations 
combined,  to  do  what  they  have  done  ? 

The  absorption  of  China  by  Russia  or  any  other  single  Euro- 
pean power  is  not  possible  for  the  reason  that  the  attempt 
would  be  resisted  by  all  the  other  Powers,  including  the  United 
States  and  Japan.  The  world  will  never  permit  one  of  its 
nations  to  make  China  what  Great  Britain  has  made  India.  A 
half  dozen  Powers  are  determined  to  have  a  share  if  the  break 
up  comes. 

The  real  partition  of  the  Empire,  however,  is  hardly  probable 
as  the  case  stands  to-day.  The  Powers  dread  the  task  of  ad- 
ministering a  population  that  is  not  only  huge  but  of  such  a 
stubborn  character  that  enormous  military  expenditures  might 
be  required  to  prevent  constant  rebellions.  A  still  more  potent 
reason  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  European  nations  that  covet 
portions  of  China  could  not  agree  among  themselves  as  to  the 
division  of  the  spoil.  There  is,  indeed,  apparent  acquiescence 
in  Russian  influence  in  Manchuria,  German  in  Shantung, 
British  in  the  valleys  of  the  Yang-tze  and  the  Pearl,  and  French 
in  Tonquin.     But  no  one  nation  is  quite  satisfied  with  this 

'  Chapter  VII. 


308  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

division.  Each  has  thus  far  taken  what  it  could  get ;  but  Ger- 
many, France  and  Russia  are  far  from  pleased  to  see  Great 
Britain  take  the  lion's  share  that  she  has  marked  out  for  her- 
self. Moreover,  there  are  important  provinces  that  are  now 
common  ground,  like  the  imperial  province  of  Chih-li,  or  un- 
appropriated, like  several  of  the  interior  provinces.  Actual 
partition  would  mean  a  scramble  that  would  precipitate  a  gen- 
eral war,  and  such  a  war  would  involve  so  many  uncertainties 
not  only  as  to  the  result  in  China  but  as  to  possible  readjust- 
ments in  Europe  itself,  that  the  Powers  wisely  shrink  from  it. 
So  they  prefer  for  the  present,  at  least,  the  policy  of  "spheres 
of  influence"  as  giving  them  a  commercial  foothold  and  polit- 
ical influence  with  less  risk  of  trouble. 

Besides,  Great  Britain,  the  United  States  and  Japan  are  all 
opposed  to  partition.  England's  chief  interest  in  China  is 
commercial,  and  it  quite  naturally  prefers  to  trade  with  the 
whole  of  China  rather  than  be  confined  to  a  particular  section 
of  it,  for  it  knows  that  there  would  be  little  trade  with  any 
parts  of  China  that  Russia,  France  and  Germany  absolutely 
controlled.  So  England  insists  on  the  integrity  of  China  and 
"the  open  door." 

The  United  States  has  the  same  commercial  interest  in  this 
respect  as  Great  Britain,  with  the  added  motive  that  partition 
would  give  her  nothing  at  all  in  China ;  while  Japan  feels  the 
most  strongly  of  all  for  she  has  both  the  reasons  that  actuate 
the  United  States  and  also  the  vital  one  of  self-preservation. 
The  Hon.  Chester  Holcombe  says  that  several  years  ago,  in  an 
interview  with  an  influential  member  of  the  Japanese  Cabinet 
in  Tokio,  the  conversation  turned  upon  the  aggressions  of 
European  Powers  and  the  weakness  of  Korea,  which  had 
recently  declared  its  independence. 


"  The  Japanese  Minister  was  greatly  disturbed  at  the  prospect  for  the 
future.  He  insisted  that  the  action  taken  by  Korea,  under  the  guidance 
of  China,  would  not  save  tliat  little  kingdom  from  attack  and  absorption. 


Is  There  a  Yellow  Peril  309 

Holding  up  one  hand,  and  separating  the  first  and  second  fingers  as  widely 
as  possible  from  the  third  and  fourth,  he  said : — '  Here  is  the  situation. 
Those  four  fingers  represent  the  four  great  European  Powers,  Great 
Britain,  Germany,  France  and  Russia.  In  the  open  space  between  them 
lie  Japan,  China  and  Korea.'  Then,  with  really  dramatic  force,  he  added : 
'  Like  the  jaws  of  a  huge  vise,  those  fingers  are  slowly  closing,  and  unless 
some  supreme  effort  is  made,  they  will  certainly  crush  the  national  life  out 
of  all  three.' " 

So  Japan  must  be  reckoned  with  in  any  plans  which  the 
western  nations  may  make  for  China,  and  that  Japan  is  a 
factor  not  to  be  despised,  the  Russians  have  learned  to  their 
sorrow.  Japan  believes  that  she  has  found  the  way  to  make 
her  opposition  so  formidable  that  all  Europe  cannot  overcome  it. 
Beyond  any  other  people  in  the  world,  the  Chinese  furnish  the 
raw  materials  for  a  world  power.  All  they  need  is  capable 
leadership.  This  is  the  gigantic  task  to  which  Japan  has  set 
herself.  The  alert  and  enterprising  Islanders  have  entered 
upon  a  career  of  national  aggrandizement.  They  realize  that 
with  their  limited  territory  and  population,  they  can  hardly 
hope  to  become  a  power  of  the  first  class  and  make  headway 
against  the  tremendous  forces  of  western  nations  unless  they  can 
ally  themselves  with  their  larger  continental  neighbour.  They 
clearly  see  their  own  superiority  in  organization,  discipline  and 
modern  spirit,  and  they  see  also  the  stupendous  power  of  China 
if  it  can  be  aroused  and  effectively  directed.  The  Japanese 
have  never  been  accused  of  undue  modesty  and  they  firmly 
believe  that  they  are  just  the  people  to  do  this  work.  This  is 
not  simply  because  they  are  ambitious,  but  because  they  see 
that  unless  Asia  can  be  thus  solidified  against  Europe,  the 
whole  mighty  continent  will  fall  under  the  control  of  the  white 
men  who  already  dominate  so  large  a  part  of  it.  Accordingly 
the  Japanese  have  entered  upon  the  definite  policy  of  not  only 
absorbing  Korea,  but  of  cultivating  the  closest  possible  alliance 
with  their  former  foe. 

The  Hon.  Augustin  Heard,  formerly  United  States  Minister 


310  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

to  Korea,  represents  Japan  as  whispering  to  the  sorely  beset 

Celestials: — 

"  Why  shouldn't  we  work  together  ?  I  hate  the  foreigner  as  much  as 
you  do,  and  should  be  as  glad  to  get  rid  of  him.  Together  we  can  do 
great  things ;  separate  we  are  feeble.  I  am  too  small,  and  you  are,  so  to 
speak,  too  big.  You  are  unorganized.  Let  us  join  hands  and  I  will  do 
what  I  can  to  help  you  get  ready ;  and  when  we  are  ready  we  will  drive 
these  insolent  fellows  into  the  sea.  I  have  a  big  army  and  navy  and  I 
have  learned  all  the  foreigners  have  to  teach.  This  knowledge  I  will  pass 
on  to  you.  We  have  great  advantages  over  them.  In  the  first  place  they 
are  a  long  way  from  their  supplies,  and  every  move  they  make  costs  a 
great  deal  of  money.  Our  men  can  fight  as  well  as  theirs,  if  they  are 
shown  how,  and  there  are  a  great  many  more  of  them.  They  can  march 
as  well,  will  require  to  carry  almost  no  baggage,  and  do  not  cost  half  as 
much  to  feed.  Our  wounded  men,  too,  in  their  own  country  and  climate 
will  get  well,  while  theirs  will  die." 

To  this  suggestion  China  listens  and  ponders  : — 

"  What  are  the  objections  ?  There  is,  first,  the  contempt  which  our 
people  feel  for  them ;  but  that  is  rapidly  dying  out.  The  Japanese 
showed  in  our  last  war  that  small  men  can  fight  as  well  as  big  ones ;  and 
a  rifle  in  the  hands  of  the  small  man  will  carry  as  far  and  as  true  as  in  the 
hands  of  a  larger  one.  Then,  when  we  have  once  got  rid  of  the  foreigner, 
will  Japan  not  try  to  keep  the  leadership  and  supremacy  ?  Very  likely, 
but  then  we  shall  be  armed  and  organized ;  we  have  as  able  men  as  they, 
and  with  our  overwhelming  numbers  shall  we  not  be  capable  of  holding 
our  own — nay,  if  we  wish,  of  taking  possession  of  her  ?  " ' 

Undoubtedly  this  imaginary  conversation  voices  the  ambition 
of  the  Japanese  and  the  inclination  of  an  increasing  number  of 
Chinese.  At  any  rate,  the  possibilities  which  such  an  alliance 
suggests  are  almost  overwhelming.  Japan  undoubtedly  has  the 
intelligence  and  the  executive  ability  to  organize  as  no  other 
power  could  the  vast  latent  forces  of  China.  If  any  one 
doubts  her  fitness  to  discipline  and  lead,  he  might  obtain  some 
heartfelt  information  from  the  Russians.  Says  Mr.  George 
Lynch  in  the  nineteenth  century  : — 

'  Article  in  The  New  York  Tribune,  September  7,  1903. 


Is  There  a  Yellow  Peril  311 

"  I  know  of  no  movement  more  pregnant  with  possibilities  than  this 
now  in  progress  which  makes  towards  the  Japanization  of  China.  There 
will  be  great  changes  in  the  government  and  life  of  that  great  Empire  just 
as  soon  as  the  Empress  Dowager  dies,  and  she  is  now  an  old  woman.  In 
the  upheaval  of  change,  if  the  industrious,  persistent,  far-sighted  efforts  of 
her  neighbours  bear  fruit,  we  may  witness  quite  a  rapid  transformation  in 
the  life  of  the  Empire.  That  clever  conspirator,  Sen  Yat  Sen,  said  to  me 
that,  once  the  Chinese  made  up  their  minds  to  change,  they  would  effect 
in  fifteen  years  as  much  as  it  has  taken  Japan  thirty  to  accomplish.  There 
are  some  men  in  the  East  who  affect  to  regard  this  rapprochement  between 
Japan  and  China  with  alarm,  as  carrying  in  its  development  the  menace 
of  a  really  genuine  '  yellow  peril.'  " 

It  certainly  needs  no  argument  to  prove  that  if  the  426,000,- 
000  Chinese  are  once  fairly  committed  to  the  skillful  leader- 
ship of  the  Japanese,  a  force  will  be  set  in  motion  which  could 
be  withstood  only  by  the  united  efforts  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
world. 

The  task  to  which  Japan  has  set  herself,  however,  will  not  be 
easily  achieved.  To  say  nothing  of  other  nations,  the  Russians 
are  not  at  all  disposed  to  sit  quietly  by  while  their  foes  cajole 
the  Chinese.  Russia  has  some  designs  of  her  own  on  China. 
Half  Asiatic  and  semi-barbarous  herself,  past  master  in  all  the 
arts  of  Oriental  diplomacy,  patient,  stubborn  and  untroubled 
by  scruples,  she  is  a  formidable  competitor  for  the  leadership 
of  China.  In  Persia,  the  Russian  political  policy  works  largely 
through  the  missionaries  of  the  Greek  Church,  whose  propa- 
ganda is  political  as  well  as  religious.  The  same  tactics  are 
now  being  employed  in  China.  The  Chih-li  correspondent  of 
the  North  China  Herald  reports  that  the  Holy  Russian  branch 
of  the  Greek  Church  is  becoming  suspiciously  active  in  North 
China. 

"  Their  work  is  spreading,  and  the  methods  adopted  are  such  as  to  at- 
tract all  the  worst  characters  of  the  districts  in  which  they  operate.  In  a 
little  town  near  the  Great  Wall,  where  in  June  there  were  about  a  dozen 
converts  to  the  Greek  Church,  there  are  now  over  eighty.  Any  and  all 
are  welcome.     Their  families  no  less  than  the  men  themselves  are  reck- 


312  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

oned  as  belonging  to  the  Church.  The  priest  has  made  a  round  of  several 
towns,  and,  though  he  speaks  no  Chinese,  by  unhesitatingly  giving  pro- 
tection and  assistance  in  any  case  of  dispute  or  litigation,  he  has  made  it 
clearly  evident  that  for  any  man  in  any  way  under  a  cloud  there  is  noth- 
ing better  than  to  join  the  Greek  Church.  .  .  .  The  impression 
among  European  onlookers  is  that  Russia  is  preparing  to  extend  her  arms 
over  Chih-li,  and  is  beginning  to  smooth  her  way  by  gaining  over  the  people 
in  the  eastern  marches  of  the  province.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the 
Greek  Church  is  known  among  the  people  as  a  «  Kuo  Chiao '  (National 
Church),  a  charge  from  which  the  Protestants  are  considered  to  be  en- 
tirely, and  the  Roman  Catholics  partially,  free." 

China,  moreover,  will  be  slow  to  respond  to  the  overtures  of 
Japan,  partly  because  her  bulk  and  phlegmatic  disposition  and 
lack  of  public  spirit  make  it  difficult  for  her  to  act  quickly  and 
unitedly  in  anything,  partly  because  Chinese  pride  and  preju- 
dice will  not  easily  yield  to  the  leadership  of  the  haughty  little 
island  whose  people  as  well  as  whose  territory  have  long  been 
contemptuously  regarded  as  dwarfish  and  inferior. 

But  the  shrewd  Japanese  are  making  more  progress  than  is 
commonly  supposed.  Not  only  have  they  already  obtained  the 
great  island  of  Formosa,  but  they  have  for  years  been  quietly 
making  their  commercial  interests  paramount  in  Korea.  Their 
first  move  in  the  war  with  Russia  was  to  occupy  that  strategic 
peninsula  with  a  large  military  force  and  to  secure  a  treaty  with 
the  Emperor  which  gives  Japan  a  virtual  protectorate  over  the 
Land  of  the  Morning  Calm.  The  promise  to  respect  the  inde- 
pendence of  Korea  of  course  deceives  no  one.  It  is  probably 
sincere,  as  diplomatic  promises  go ;  but  he  is  innocent  indeed 
who  imagines  that  Korea  will  be  free  to  do  anything  that  Japan 
disapproves.  The  freedom  will  doubtless  be  of  the  kind  that 
Cuba  enjoys — a  freedom  which  gives  large  liberty  in  matters 
of  internal  administration,  which  relieves  the  protecting  coun- 
try of  any  trouble  or  responsibility  that  it  may  deem  incon- 
venient, but  which  does  not  permit  any  alliance  with  a  third 
nation,  and  which,  for  all  important  international  purposes,  es- 
pecially of  a  military  character,  regards  the  "independent" 


Is  There  a  Yellow  Peril  313 

nation  as  really  dependent.  It  is  quite  safe  to  predict  that  no 
European  power  will  be  unsophisticated  enough  to  assume  that 
Korea  is  "a  free  and  independent  nation."  The  arrangement 
will  be  in  every  way  to  the  advantage  of  the  Koreans,  who  have 
suffered  grievously  from  the  pulling  and  hauling  of  contending 
powers  and  from  many  evils  from  which  the  abler  and  wiser 
Japanese  will,  in  a  measure  at  least,  protect  them. 

For  a  long  time,  too,  the  Japanese  have  been  strengthening 
the  ties  which  bind  them  to  China.  The  brainy  little  Japs 
can  be  seen  to-day  in  almost  all  the  leading  cities  of  the  Mid- 
dle Kingdom.  There  is  a  Japanese  colony  of  200  souls  in 
Chefoo  and  of  1,400  in  Tien-tsin.  Already  the  Japanese  are 
advising  China's  government,  reorganizing  her  army,  drafting 
her  laws  and  teaching  in  her  university.  Even  more  distant 
countries  are  not  beyond  the  range  of  their  ambition.  The 
leaders  of  India,  restive  under  British  rule,  are  beginning  to 
look  with  eager  sympathy  to  Japan  as  the  rising  Asiatic  power. 
Even  the  Grand  Vizier  of  Persia  has  paid  a  state  visit  to  Japan. 
Any  hopes  of  India  and  Persia  are  likely  to  be  vain,  for  Britain 
has  a  hold  upon  the  former  and  Russia  upon  the  latter  which 
it  would  be  Quixotic  in  the  Japanese  to  attempt  to  break.  The 
Islanders  are  not  fools.  But  the  Siamese,  helplessly  exasper- 
ated by  the  encroachments  of  the  French,  would  doubtless  be 
glad  enough  to  enter  into  an  alliance  with  Japan  and  China. 
In  1902,  the  Crown  Prince  of  Siam  visited  Japan,  where  he 
was  most  graciously  welcomed,  and  increasing  numbers  of  Jap- 
anese who  know  what  they  are  about  are  obtaining  increasing 
influence  in  the  Land  of  the  White  Elephant. 

Nor  is  it  simply  by  sending  Japanese  to  neighbouring  coun- 
tries that  Japan  is  extending  her  power.  She  is  encouraging 
Chinese  students  to  come  to  her  shores.  Dr.  David  S.  Spen- 
cer of  Japan  declares  that  300  Chinese  are  studying  the  art  of 
war  in  Japanese  barracks,  and  that  over  2,000  bright  young 
Chinese  are  being  trained  in  the  schools  of  Tokio  for  positions 
of  future  power  in  their  own  country.     It  is  significant  that 


314  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Viceroy  Yuan  Shih  Kai,  the  ablest  and  most  far-seeing  states- 
man in  China,  is  reported  in  the  telegraphic  despatches  of 
February  5,  1904,  as  having  memorialized  the  Throne  in  favour 
of  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  with  Japan  to  regain 
Manchuria  from  the  Russians,  while  the  North  China  Daily 
News  represents  Prince  Su,  Prince  Ching,  Na  Tung,  President 
of  the  Wai-wu-pu,  and  Tieh  Liang  as  in  favour  of  the  same 
policy.  Mr.  Holcombe  is  of  the  opinion  that  *'  the  brightest 
spot  in  the  outlook  for  China  is  in  the  increasing  probability  of  al- 
liance and  affiliation  with  Japan.  .  .  .  Together  these  two 
great  nations  of  the  Far  East  may,  and  it  is  confidently  hoped 
will,  safely  confront  those  Governments  whose  schemes  are  hos- 
tile to  both,  and  prove  their  right  to  manage  their  own  affairs 
and  determine  their  own  destinies."  ^ 

But  whatever  the  immediate  future  may  be,  it  is  not  probable 
that  so  huge  and  virile  a  population  as  the  Chinese  will  be  per- 
manently led  by  a  foreign  nation.  Even  if  partition  should 
come,  it  would  only  hasten  the  development  of  those  teeming 
millions  of  people,  for  foreign  domination  would  mean  more 
railway,  telegraph  and  steamship  lines.  It  would  mean  the 
opening  of  mines,  the  development  of  the  press,  the  complete 
ascendency  of  Western  ideas.  Though  China  as  a  political  or- 
ganism might  be  divided,  the  Chinese  people  would  remain — 
the  most  virile,  industrious,  untiring  people  of  Asia,  and  per- 
haps, after  due  tutelage,  a  coming  power  of  the  world.  China's 
assimilative  power  is  enormous.  The  black  man  may  be  domi- 
nated by  the  white  and  the  Hindu  by  the  English,  but  China  is 
neither  Africa  nor  India.  It  is  true  that  the  present  dynasty  is 
Manchu,  but  the  Manchus  are  more  akin  to  the  Chinese  than 
either  the  Russians  or  the  Japanese.  Moreover  the  Manchus 
have  not  tried  to  rule  China  from  the  outside,  but  have  per- 
manently settled  in  China,  and  while  they  have  succeeded  as  a 
rule  in  maintaining  a  separate  name,  they  have  not  made  the 
Chinese  Manchus,  but  instead  they  have  themselves  been  prac- 
'  Article  in  The  Outlook,  February  13,  1904. 


Is  There  a  Yellow  Peril  315 

tically  merged  into  the  engulfing  mass  of  China.  "  Those  who 
imagine  that  the  vast  population  of  the  Empire  will  submit 
quietly  to  the  partition  of  their  country,  or  that  any  military 
force  of  moderate  size  could  force  it  to  acquiesce  in  such  a 
scheme,  know  but  little  of  the  Chinese  character,  of  their  in- 
tense love  of  country,  or  of  their  unconquerable  tenacity  of 
purpose."  ^  The  foreign  nation  that  gets  the  Chinese,  or  even 
any  considerable  portion  of  them,  will  probably  find  that  it  has 
assumed  a  burden  in  comparison  with  which  the  Egyptian 
trouble  with  the  Israelites  was  insignificant,  and  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  the  conqueror  will  some  day  find  himself 
conquered. 

At  any  rate,  portentous  possibilities  are  conjured  up  by  the 
contemplation  of  this  mighty  nation  !  There  are  upheavals 
compared  with  which  our  revolutions  are  but  spasms.  There 
are  religious  whose  adherents  outnumber  ours  two  to  one. 
There  is  a  civilization  which  was  old  before  ours  was  born. 
Are  we  to  believe  that  these  swarming  legions  were  created  for 
no  purpose  ?  Are  their  generations  to  appear  and  fall  and  rot 
unnoticed,  like  the  leaves  of  the  forest  ?  Degraded,  supersti- 
tious, many  of  them  still  are.  But  they  need  only  to  be  organ- 
ized and  directed  to  do  untold  mischief.  More  than  once 
already  has  a  similar  catastrophe  occurred.  Some  prodigy  of 
skill  and  genius  has  seized  such  enormous  forces,  given  them 
discipline  and  coherency  and  hurled  them  like  a  thunderbolt 
upon  Christendom.  Sometimes  the  shock  has  been  frightful, 
and  before  it  the  proudest  of  empires  and  the  stateliest  of  insti- 
tutions have  reeled  and  fallen.  This  was  the  Titan-like 
achievement  of  Alaric,  of  Genseric,  of  Attila,  and  of  Moham- 
med. Yet  Goths  and  Vandals,  Huns  and  Mohammedans, 
combined,  had  not  half  the  numbers  upon  which  we  now  look. 
Give  the  426,000,000  Chinese  the  results  of  modern  discovery 
and  invention,  and  imagination  falters.  They  have  the  terri- 
tory. They  have  the  resources.  They  have  the  population 
'Chester  A.  Holcombe,  article  in  The  Outlook,  February  13,  1904. 


316  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

and  they  are  now  acquiring  the  knowledge.  China  will  fight 
no  naore  like  the  barbarians  of  old  with  spears  and  bows  and 
arrows,  for  despite  the  treaty  of  1900  prohibiting  the  importa- 
tion of  arms,  the  Chinese  are  buying  repeating  rifles  and  Maxim 
guns,  while  in  their  own  arsenals  they  are  turning  out  vast 
quantities  of  munitions  of  war.  The  American  consul  at  Leip- 
sic,  Germany,  reports  to  the  State  Department  that  an  Austrian 
company  has  just  received  an  order  for  so  large  a  number  of 
small  arms  for  the  Chinese  Government  that  it  will  take  several 
years  to  fill  it,  even  with  additional  forces  of  men  to  whom  it 
has  given  employment.  This  is  only  one  of  many  reports 
received  in  Washington  within  recent  months  that  the  factories 
of  both  Germany  and  Austria  are  busy  supplying  the  Chinese 
with  modern  arms  and  ammunition.  The  armies  of  China 
will  soon  be  as  well  equipped  as  the  armies  of  Europe. 

Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  up  to  the  year  1901,  promotion 
in  the  army  was  often  determined  by  trials  of  strength  with 
stone  weights,  dexterity  in  sword  exercises  and  skill  in  the  use 
of  the  bow  and  arrow.  But  in  that  year,  an  Imperial  Decree 
declared  that  such  tests  "  have  no  relation  to  strategy  and  to 
that  military  science  which  is  indispensable  for  military  offi- 
cers," commanded  that  they  be  abolished  and  that  military 
academies  should  be  established  in  the  provincial  capitals  in 
which  the  science  of  modern  war  should  be  diligently  studied. 
Not  content  with  this,  forty  young  men  were  sent  to  Europe 
in  1903  for  the  express  purpose  of  studying  the  latest  military 
and  naval  methods  of  the  white  man.  And  now  Sir  Robert 
Hart  proposes  not  only  a  reorganization  of  China's  civil  service 
but  the  building  of  a  first-class  navy  of  thirty  battleships  and 
cruisers,  and  he  thinks  that  the  enormous  sum  of  $200,000,000 
a  year  can  be  obtained  for  this  purpose  by  an  increase  in  the 
land  tax.  Then,  he  declares,  China  will  be  enabled  "not 
only  to  make  her  voice  heard,  but  to  take  an  effective  share  in 
the  settlement  of  questions  in  the  Far  East."  The  London 
Times  rather  contemptuously  asserts  that  "  the  entire  project 


Is  There  a  Yellow  Peril  317 

in  its  present  shape  is  visionary  from  beginning  to  end." 
But  Sir  Robert  Hart  has  spent  fifty  years  in  China,  having 
entered  the  British  consular  service  in  1854  and  became  In- 
spector-General of  Maritime  Customs  in  1863.  During  the 
greater  part  of  this  long  period,  he  has  been  an  adviser  of 
the  Chinese  Government  and  the  most  influential  foreigner  in 
the  Empire.  The  recommendation  of  such  a  man  is  not  to  be 
lightly  dismissed  as  "visionary,"  especially  when  it  is  made  to 
a  people  who  have  been  taught  by  bitter  experience  that  a 
modern  armament  is  their  only  hope  of  defense  against  the 
foreigner.  As  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  year  1904,  Russia 
ridiculed  the  idea  that  Japan  could  do  anything  against  a 
western  power,  and  all  the  rest  of  Europe  as  well  as  America, 
while  admiring  the  pluck  of  the  Japanese,  confidently  expected 
them  to  be  crushed  by  the  Slav.  Wise  men  will  think  twice  in 
the  future  before  they  sneer  at  the  yellow  race.  If  Japan  in 
half  a  century  could  go  from  junks  and  cloisonne  to  battle- 
ships and  magazine  rifles,  and  to  the  handling  of  them,  too, 
more  scientifically  and  efiectively  than  they  were  ever  handled 
by  a  white  man,  why  should  it  be  deemed  chimerical  that  China, 
with  equal  ability  and  greater  resources  and  certainly  no  less 
provocation,  should  in  time  achieve  even  vaster  results,  particu- 
larly as  Japan  is  not  only  willing  but  eager  to  teach  her  ?  "  We 
do  not  lack  either  men  of  intellect  or  brilliant  talents,  capable 
of  learning  and  doing  anything  they  please ;  but  their  move- 
ments have  hitherto  been  hampered  by  old  prejudices,"  said 
the  Emperor  Kuang  Hsii.  Precisely,  and  the  stern,  relentless 
pressure  of  necessity  is  now  shattering  some  of  those  "old 
prejudices."  "You  urge  us  to  move  faster,"  said  a  Chinese 
magistrate  to  a  foreigner.  "  We  are  slow  to  respond  for  we 
are  a  conservative  people ;  but  if  you  force  us  to  start,  we  may 
move  faster  and  farther  than  you  like. ' ' 

Some  things  may  yet  occur  undreampt  of  in  all  our  philos- 
ophy. We  observe  the  changing  march  of  world  powers, 
the   majestic   procession  in  which   the   pomp   and   glitter   of 


318  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

thrones  are  mingled  with  the  tears  and  blood  of  calamity 
and  war.  What  a  pageant !  Yesterday,  Chaldea,  Egypt,  As- 
syria, Babylon,  Persia,  Greece,  Rome !  To-day,  England, 
Germany,  Russia,  Japan,  the  United  States  1  To-morrow, 
what  ?  What,  indeed,  if  not  some  of  these  now  awakening 
nations !  It  is  by  no  means  impossible  that  some  new 
Jenghiz  Khan  or  Tamerlane  may  arise,  and  with  the  weapons 
of  modern  warfare  in  his  hands,  and  these  uncounted  millions 
at  his  command,  gaze  about  on  the  pygmies  that  we  call  the 
Powers  !  Christendom  has  too  long  regarded  heathen  nations 
with  a  pity  not  unmingled  with  contempt.  It  is  now  begin- 
ning to  regard  them  with  a  respect  not  unmingled  with  fear. 
There  is  not  a  statesman  in  Europe  to-day  who  is  not  troubled 
with  dire  forebodings  regarding  these  teeming  hordes,  that  ap- 
pear to  be  just  awakening  from  the  torpor  of  ages,  and  some 
thoughtful  observers  fear  that  a  movement  has  already  begun 
which  will  lead  to  great  wars  whose  issue  no  man  can  fore- 
see, and  to  stupendous  reconstructions  of  the  map  of  the 
world.  The  Emperor  of  Germany  has  painted  a  picture  which 
has  startled  not  so  much  by  its  art  as  by  its  meaning.  "  On  a 
projecting  rock,  illuminated  by  a  shining  cross,  stand  the  alle- 
gorical figures  of  the  civilized  nations.  At  the  feet  of  this 
rocky  eminence  lies  the  wide  plain  of  European  culture,  from 
which  rise  countless  cities  and  the  steeples  and  spires  of 
churches  of  every  denomination.  But  ominous  clouds  are 
gathering  over  this  peaceful-  landscape.  A  stifling  gloom 
o'erspreads  the  sky.  The  glare  of  burning  cities  lights  up  the 
road  by  which  the  barbaric  hordes  of  Asia  are  approaching. 
The  Archangel  Michael  points  to  the  fearsome  foe,  waving  the 
nations  on  to  do  battle  in  a  sacred  cause.  Underneath  are 
the  words — 'Peoples  of  Europe,  keep  guard  over  your  most 
sacred  treasures  !  '  " 

Making  all  due  allowance  for  the  exuberance  of  Emperor 
William's  imagination,  the  fact  remains  that  his  picture  repre- 
sents the  thought  that  is  uppermost  to-day  in  the  minds  of  the 


Is  There  a  Yellow  Peril  319 

world's  thinkers.     All  see  that  the  next  few  decades  are  big 
with  possibilities  of  peril. 

"  The  rudiments  of  Empire  here 
Are  plastic  yet  and  warm, 
The  chaos  of  a  mighty  world 
Is  rounding  into  form." 

One  thinks  instinctively  of  the  words  of  Isaiah:  "The 
noise  of  a  multitude  in  the  mountains,  like  as  of  a  great  peo- 
ple ;  a  tumultuous  noise  of  the  kingdoms  of  nations  gathered 
together;  the  Lord  of  hosts  mustereth  the  hosts  of  the  battle." 
Plainly,  the  overshadowing  problem  of  the  present  age  is  the 
relation  of  China  to  the  world's  future.  Whether  recent  events 
have  lessened  the  danger,  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter. 


XXVI 

FRESH  REASON  TO  HATE  THE  FOREIGNER 

OF  course,  the  victorious  march  of  the  AlUes  upon 
Peking,  tlie  capture  of  the  city,  the  flight  of  the  Em- 
peror and  the  Empress  Dowager  and  the  humiliating 
terms  of  peace  taught  the  Chinese  anew  their  helplessness  be- 
fore the  modern  equipment  of  western  nations  and  the  neces- 
sity of  learning  the  methods  of  the  white  man  if  they  were  ever 
to  hold  their  own  against  him.  But  defeat,  while  always  hard 
to  bear,  does  not  always  embitter  the  conquered  against  the 
conqueror.  On  the  contrary,  there  are  evidences  that  the 
Chinese  respect  and  like  the  Japanese  far  more  since  they  were 
soundly  whipped  by  them  in  1894  and  1895.  In  considering, 
therefore,  the  effect  upon  the  Chinese  of  the  suppression  of  the 
Boxer  uprising,  we  must  bear  in  mind  not  so  much  the  fact  of 
victory  by  the  Allies  as  the  treatment  which  they  accorded  their 
prostrate  foe.  Was  that  treatment  dignified  and  just  ?  Did 
the  soldiers  of  alleged  Christian  nations  behave  with  the  sobriety 
and  fairness  which  so  eminently  characterized  the  Japanese 
troops  after  the  China-Japan  War  ?  Have  the  Chinese  reason 
to  regard  foreigners  in  the  future  as  men  who  will  sternly 
punish  injustice  and  treachery,  but  who  are  at  the  same  time  as 
moral  and  humane  and  trustworthy  as  might  be  reasonably  ex- 
pected of  the  representatives  of  a  higher  civilization  and  a 
purer  religion?  For  answer,  let  us  turn  to  the  conduct  of  the 
allied  armies,  led  by  experienced  officers  of  high  rank  and 
working  in  harmony  with  diplomatic  officials  who  were  sup- 
posed to  incarnate  the  spirit  and  methods  of  the  most  enlight- 
ened nations  of  the  earth.  The  testimony  of  witnesses  will  be 
interesting. 

320 


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Fresh  Reason  to  Hate  the  Foreigner      321 

Dr.  Arthur  H.  Smith,  who  was  in  Peking  at  the  time, 
writes : — 

"  Bating  all  exaggerations,  it  remains  true  that  scores  of  walled  cities 
have  been  visited  by  armed  bodies  of  foreign  soldiers,  the  district  mag- 
istrate— and  sometimes  the  Prefect — held  up  and  bullied  to  force  him  to 
pay  a  large  sum  of  money,  with  no  other  reason  than  the  imperative  de- 
mand and  the  threat  of  dire  consequences  on  refusal.  In  one  case  the 
Russians  kidnapped  the  Prefect  of  Yung-ping- fu  and  carried  him  off  to  Port 
Arthur.  At  Ting-chou  the  French  did  the  same  to  the  sub-prefect,  the  only 
energetic  magistrate  in  all  that  region,  bearing  him  in  triumph  to  Pao- 
ting-fu  and  leavmg  the  district  to  Boxers  and  to  chaos.  At  Tsang-chou 
the  Germans  came  in  force,  looted  the  yamen  of  General  Mei,  the  only 
Chinese  officer  of  rank  who  had  been  constantly  fighting  and  destroying 
Boxers  for  nearly  a  year,  drove  him  away  and  released  all  the  Boxer 
prisoners  in  the  jails  of  the  city,  plundering  the  yamen  of  the  friendly  and 
efficient  sub-prefect  who  had  saved  the  lives  of  the  foreign  families  close 
by  the  city.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  General  Mei  complained  that '  on  eight 
sides  he  had  no  face  left.'  .  .  .  The  robbery  of  Chinese  on  the  way 
home  with  the  avails  of  their  day's  work  has  been  systematically  carried 
on  by  some  of  the  soldiers  from  Christian  lands.  Even  foreigners  are 
'  held  up  '  on  the  street  by  drunken  soldiers,  and  it  is  becoming  necessary 
never  to  go  out  without  one's  revolver — a  weapon  generally  quite  super- 
fluous in  almost  any  part  of  China." 

Bishop  D.  H.  Moore,  of  the  Methodist  Church,  who  hurried 
to  Peking  as  soon  as  the  way  was  open,  wrote  :  — 

"  You  can  hardly  form  any  conception  of  the  exposure  and  hardships 
under  any  but  the  American  and  Japanese  flags.  The  English  have 
scarcely  any  but  the  Sikhs,  who  are  lustful  and  lootful  to  a  degree.  The 
Russians  are  brutal  and  the  Germans  deserve  their  reputation  for  brutahty. 
With  Lowry  and  Hobart,  I  responded  to  the  agonizing  appeal  of  a  hus- 
band to  drive  out  a  German  corporal  who,  on  duty  and  armed,  had  run 
him  off  and  was  mistreating  his  wife.  The  instance  is  but  one  of  hundreds 
of  daily  occurrence.  The  French  are  very  devils  at  this  sort  of  outrage. 
On  the  advance  to  Peking,  beyond  Tung-chou,  they  found  married  fam- 
ilies— men,  women  and  children — cowering  in  barges  on  the  canal  and 
volleyed  into  them.  Every  man,  every  cart,  every  boat  must  fly  a  flag. 
Coolies  are  cruelly  impressed  and  often  cruelly  mistreated.  The  great 
Christian  nations  of  the  world  are  being  represented  in  China  by  robbing, 


322  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

raping,  looting  soldiery.  This  is  part  of  China's  punishment ;  but  what 
will  she  think  of  Christianity  ?  Of  course,  our  soldiers  are  the  best  be- 
haved ;  but  there  are  desperate  characters  in  every  army." 

Captain  Frank  Brinkley,  the  editor  of  the  Japa7i  Weekly 
Mail,  penned  the  following  indignant  paragraph  : — 

"  It  sends  a  thrill  of  horror  through  every  white  man's  bosom  to  learn 
that  forty  missionary  women  and  twenty-five  little  children  were  butchered 
by  the  Boxers.  But  in  Tung-chou  alone,  a  city  where  the  Chinese  made 
no  resistance  and  where  there  was  no  fighting,  573  Chinese  women  of  the 
upper  classes  committed  suicide  rather  than  survive  the  indignities  they 
had  suffered.  Women  of  the  lower  classes  fared  similarly  at  the  hands  of 
the  soldiers,  but  were  not  unwilling  to  survive  their  shame.  With  what 
show  of  consistency  is  the  Occident  to  denounce  the  barbarity  of  the  Chi- 
nese, when  Occidental  soldiers  go  to  China  and  perpetrate  the  very  acts 
which  constitute  the  very  basis  of  barbarity  ?  " 

When  I  asked  the  Rev.  Dr.  D.  Z.  Sheffield,  for  many  years 
a  missionary  of  the  American  Board  in  Tung-chou,  whether 
this  statement  was  accurate,  he  replied  that  it  was  not  only  true, 
but  that  it  was  an  understatement  of  the  truth. 

Fay  Chi  Ho,  an  intelligent  and  reliable  Chinese  Christian, 
gives  the  following  account  of  what  he  personally  saw  : — 

«'  I  travelled  with  a  British  convoy  going  by  boat,  occupying  quarters 
on  a  Major's  boat  with  his  Sikh  soldiers  and  cook.  I  know  that  the 
Major  was  not  a  Christian  man,  for  he  smoked  and  drank  all  day  long 
and  was  constantly  cursing,  striking  and  kicking  his  men,  especially  his 
cook.  He  also  gave  his  orders  in  loud  tones,  with  fierce  mien  and  glar- 
ing eyes,  and  we  all  feared  him  exceedingly.  Every  day  at  noon  the 
Major  would  take  four  Sikhs  and  go  to  villages  several  miles  from  the 
river  for  loot,  always  compelling  me  to  accompany  him  as  interpreter. 
He  would  catch  the  first  man  whom  he  saw  in  a  village  and  compel  him 
to  act  as  guide  to  the  homes  of  the  rich.  So  successful  was  he  on  these 
raids  that  by  the  time  he  reached  Tung-chou,  he  had  three  new  carts, 
three  donkeys,  five  or  six  sheep,  and  much  clothing  and  bric-a.-brac. 

"  One  day  about  noon,  we  reached  a  village  from  which  most  of  the 
people  had  fled,  and  entering  a  home  of  wealth  found  there  only  a  man 
about  fifty  or  sixty  years  old  who  received  us  very  courteously.     Immedi- 


Fresh  Reason  to  Hate  the  Foreigner      323 

ately  the  Major  demanded  money,  and  the  old  man  replied  that  though 
he  had  money  it  was  not  at  hand.  The  Major  then  commanded  his  soldiers 
to  bind  him,  while  he  himself  went  into  the  house  to  search  for  money 
He  found  several  weapons,  among  them  a  revolver  and  a  sword  with  a 
red  scarf  bound  on  the  handle.  So  he  insisted  that  the  old  man  must  be 
a  Boxer,  and  shot  him  with  his  own  hand  as  he  lay  bound.  As  usual  he 
impressed  ten  or  more  young  men  in  the  village  to  carry  his  loot,  then 
compelled  the  strongest  of  them  to  remain  and  drag  his  boats.  .  .  . 
Later,  my  brother  told  me  in  detail  how  some  Sikhs  had  come  to  the  vil- 
lage one  day,  and,  seizing  him  and  several  neighbours,  had  tied  a  rope  to 
their  queues,  then  stringing  them  together  like  mules,  with  men  leading  in 
front  and  driving  behind,  had  taken  them  to  the  river  bank  to  drag  boats. 
My  brother  had  never  done  such  work  before.  Wading  in  mud  and 
water,  sometimes  up  to  his  waist,  with  the  whip  lash  to  urge  him  on,  he 
had  dragged  until  nightfall,  and  then,  not  being  allowed  to  sleep  on  the 
boat,  had  lain  down  on  the  wet  river  bank."  ' 

During  my  own  visit  in  north  China  in  the  summer  of  1901, 1 
visited  the  hospital  of  the  London  Mission  in  Tien-tsin,  immor- 
talized by  John  Kenneth  Mackenzie.  I  found  that  it  was  be- 
ing used  as  a  hospital  for  British  soldiers  who  were  suffering 
from  venereal  diseases.  What  a  spectacle  for  the  Chinese  ! 
What  a  coarse  travesty  of  the  religion  of  the  pure  Nazarene 
that  the  land  from  which  the  great  British  missionary  came 
should  crowd  with  foul  white  men  the  hospital  that  he  had  built 
with  faith  and  love  and  prayer  !  In  the  same  city,  the  fine 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  building  was  almost  deserted  by  the  Chinese  be- 
cause it  was  so  situated  that  to  reach  it  they  would  have  to  pass 
through  the  Taku  Road  in  the  Foreign  Settlement,  a  street 
which  was  a  cesspool  of  vice,  lined  with  saloons,  dance  halls 
and  gambling  hells,  and  its  sidewalks  so  crowded  with  fast 
women — French,  German,  American  and  Japanese — and  with 
drunken,  quarrelling  foreign  soldiers,  that  no  respectable  Chi- 
nese, or  for  that  matter  no  decent  foreign  woman,  could  trav- 
erse it  without  fear  of  insult  or  abuse. 

In  Peking  for  several  months  after  the  relief  of  the  legations, 

i"Two  Heroes  of  Cathay,"  pp.  154,  155,  158. 


324  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

even  respectable  American  ladies,  to  say  nothing  of  Chinese 
women,  could  not  prudently  ride  out  except  in  closed  carts,  so 
great  was  the  probability  of  indignity  at  the  hands  of  foreign 
soldiers;  while  at  the  entrance  of  famous  palaces,  the  "  public 
is  politely  requested  not  to  kick  the  Chinese  attendants  because 
they  decline  to  open  doors  which  they  are  forbidden  to  un- 
lock"— a  request  that  the  conduct  of  foreigners  had  shown  to 
be  far  from  unnecessary. 

In  the  pillaging  of  property,  savages  could  not  have  been 
more  lawless  than  the  white  men  from  "the  highly  civilized 
nations  of  the  West." 

"  It  is  not  literally  true  that  every  house  in  Peking  was  looted.  There 
tvere  some  places  in  obscure  alleys,  and  in  many  of  the  innumerable  and  al- 
most impenetrable  cul-de-sacs  with  which  the  capital  abounds,  that  escaped. 
But  persistent  inquiry  appears  to  leave  no  doubt  of  the  fact  that  practically 
every  yamen  in  the  city  has  been  rummaged,  and  practically  there  is  noth- 
ing left  of  the  contents  of  any  of  them."  • 

Words  fail  me  to  describe  the  beauties  of  the  famous  Sum- 
mer Palace  outside  the  city.  With  its  gardens,  temples,  pa- 
godas, bridges,  lotus-ponds,  statues,  colonnades,  walks  and 
drives,  it  would  do  credit  to  the  most  highly  civilized  nation 
of  Europe.  A  barbarous  people  could  never  have  made  such 
a  paradise.  The  British  and  French  in  i860  burned  a  con- 
siderable part  of  it,  but  the  enclosure  is  so  vast  (twelve  square 
miles)  and  the  buildings  are  so  numerous  that  the  destroyed 
section  appears  almost  insignificant.  Within  the  grounds  is  a 
beautiful  lake,  fed  by  great  springs  and  bordered  by  temples 
and  avenues  of  trees  and  the  yellow-roofed  palaces  of  the 
Emperor,  while  near  by  rise  the  Western  Hills. 

This  Palace  is  the  favourite  residence  of  the  Empress  Dow- 
ager and  she  spends  long  summers  there.  Here,  too,  the  Em- 
peror loves  to  come  during  the  heated  term  and  both  have 

'  North  China  Daily  News. 


Fresh  Reason  to  Hate  the  Foreigner      325 

followed  the  example  of  their  imperial  predecessors  in  lavishing 
great  sums  upon  its  adornment. 

After  the  siege  the  Russians  occupied  it  at  first,  and  when 
they  left,  the  British  and  Italians  took  possession.  Between 
the  three  so  little  was  left  that  I  found  devastation  reigning  in 
that  once  splendidly-furnished  Palace.  All  the  rare  and  costly 
bric-a-brac  had  been  carried  away,  the  mirrors  had  been  broken 
and  the  permanent  ornaments  defaced.  A  noble  bronze  statue 
of  Buddha,  in  the  temple  crowning  the  summit  of  the  hill,  was 
lying  ignominiously  on  the  floor  among  a  pile  of  debris,  one 
dark  hand  stiffly  pointing  into  the  air.  In  a  stately  pavilion,  I 
saw  two  superb  golden  statues  of  Buddha  standing  upright  and 
looking  unusually  dignified,  but  on  going  behind  them,  I  found 
that  great  holes  had  been  punched  in  their  backs. 

Even  the  places  dedicated  to  science  and  religion  were  not 
spared.  At  the  celebrated  Astronomical  Observatory  not  an 
instrument  was  left.  Every  one  had  been  carried  off  by  the 
orders  of  men  high  in  authority  at  the  French  and  German 
Legations,  and  the  whole  place  was  totally  wrecked.  What 
possible  excuse  could  there  have  been  for  destroying  a  place  for 
studying  the  heavens?  At  the  Examination  Grounds,  conse- 
crated for  centuries  to  learning  and  memorable  for  the  myriads 
of  China's  brightest  men  who  have  there  demonstrated  their 
fitness,  according  to  China's  methods,  for  high  preferment— at 
these  Examination  Grounds,  most  of  the  8,500  cells  had  been 
stripped  of  their  woodwork  to  cook  the  rations  of  the  European 
armies,  roofs  had  been  torn  off  and  even  stone  walls  had  been 
injured  in  sheer  wantonness. 

The  Temple  to  the  Gods  of  Land  and  Grain  and  the  Temple 
for  Rain  are  sacred  places  to  the  Chinese.  To  the  latter  the 
Emperor  comes  in  solemn  state  in  time  of  drought  to  pray  for 
rain,  or,  if  he  cannot  come,  he  sends  the  highest  official  of  his 
realm.  It  is  in  a  spacious  park  and  the  buildings  must  have 
been  stately  and  handsome  before  the  Boxer  outbreak.  But 
when  I  saw  them,  they  were  sadly  defaced.     The  stone  balus- 


326  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

trades  and  ornaments  had  been  broken  off,  the  walls  had  been 
injured  and  one  of  the  buildings  was  in  ruins. 

It  was,  of  course,  inevitable  that  much  havoc  should  be 
wrought  in  the  tumult  of  war.  It  was  necessary  that  supplies 
for  half-naked  and  famished  besieged  thousands  should  be  taken 
from  deserted  grain  and  clothing-shops.  It  was  expedient  that 
certain  public  buildings  should  be  destroyed  by  order  of  the 
allied  generals  as  a  warning  for  the  future.  But  why  were 
soldiers  and  thieves  allowed  to  steal  the  bric-a-brac  and  furni- 
ture and  break  the  mirrors  of  the  Emperor's  personal  apart- 
ments, wantonly  to  shatter  beautiful  columns,  deface  rare 
works  of  art,  punch  holes  in  gilded  statues,  maliciously  smash 
the  heads  of  thousands  of  exquisitely-carved  figures  and 
lions,  and  wreck  venerable  places  associated  with  learning  and 
art  ?  The  world  is  poorer  for  some  of  this  havoc,  and  it  will 
be  a  generation  before  it  can  be  remedied,  if  indeed,  some  of 
the  edifices  are  ever  restored  to  their  former  beauty.  Can  we 
wonder  that  the  Chinese  continue  to  hate  and  fear  the  for- 
eigner? The  New  York  Times  declared  that  "  every  outrage 
perpetrated  on  foreigners  in  China  has  been  repaid  tenfold  by 
the  brutalities  perpetrated  by  the  allied  armies.  It  is,"  added 
the  editor,  "  simply  monstrous  that  the  armies  of  Christian 
nations,  sent  out  to  punish  barbarism  and  protect  the  rights  of 
foreigners  in  China,  should  themselves  be  guilty  of  barbarism. 
Revenge  has  been  accompanied  by  mean  and  cruel  and  flagrant 
robbery.  The  story  is  one  to  fill  all  rational  minds  with  disgust 
and  shame." 

The  exasperation  of  the  Chinese  has  not  been  diminished  by 
the  virtual  fortifications  which  the  foreign  Powers  have  erected 
in  the  imperial  capital  since  the  crushing  of  the  Boxer  uprising. 
Most  of  the  Legations  took  advantage  of  the  panic  and  con- 
fusion which  followed  the  raising  of  the  siege,  to  seize  large 
tracts  adjoining  their  former  compounds.  The  native  buildings 
upon  them  were  demolished.  Massive  walls  were  erected  and 
cannon  mounted  upon  them.     Over  the  water-gate  in  the  city 


Fresh  Reason  to  Hate  the  Foreigner      327 

wall,  through  which  the  allied  troops  entered  the  city,  the 
Powers  have  cut  a  new  gateway  which  they  hold  and  guard. 
In  addition,  they  have  taken  possession  of  all  that  part  of  the 
city  wall  which  commands  Legation  Street,  made  barricades 
and  built  a  fort  upon  it  opposite  the  German  Legation.     For- 
eign soldiers  patrol  that  wall  night  and  day.     On  the  other 
side  of  the  Legations,  a  wide  space  has  been  cleared  by  destroy- 
ing hundreds  of  Chinese  dwellings  and  shops,  and  no  buildings 
or  trees  or  obstructions  of  any  kind  are  allowed  on  that  space, 
which  can  thus  be  swept  by  rifle  and  Gatling-gun  fire  in  the 
event  of  any  future  trouble.     Within,  ample  stores  of  arms, 
ammunition  and  food  have  been  stored  so  that  if  another  out- 
break should  occur,  the  Legations  cannot  be  besieged  as  they 
were  in  the  memorable  summer  of  1900. 

All  this,  of  course,  is  perfectly  natural  and  perhaps  neces- 
sary. The  Legations  would  be  deemed  lacking  in  ordinary 
prudence  if  they  did  not  guard  against  the  repetition  of  their 
grievous  experiences  during  the  Boxer  uprising.  But  looking 
at  the  matter  from  the  view-point  of  the  Chinese,  can  we  mar- 
vel that  it  is  resented  ?  Would  not  a  European  government  be 
stung  to  the  quick  if  other  nations  were  to  fortify  themselves 
in  that  fashion  at  its  capital?  Would  Americans  endure  it  for 
a  day  at  Washington? 

Altogether,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  writer  of  "Letters 
of  a  Chinese  Official"  has  all  too  much  reason  to  arraign 
western  civilization  as  sordid,  arrogant  and  cruel  and  to  assert 
that  Europeans  and  Americans,  while  pretending  to  follow  the 
teachings  of  Christ,  are  really  ignoring  them.  His  words  are 
bitter : — 

«  Yes,  it  is  we  who  do  not  accept  it  that  practice  the  gospel  of  peace  ; 
it  is  you  who  accept  it  that  trample  it  under  foot.  And  irony  of  ironies ! 
_it  is  the  nations  of  Christendom  who  have  come  to  us  to  teach  us  by 
sword  and  fire  that  Right  in  this  world  is  powerless  unless  it  be  supported 
by  Might.  Oh,  do  not  doubt  that  we  shall  learn  the  lesson  !  And  woe 
to  Europe  when  we  have  acquired  it.     You  are  arming  a  nation  of  four 


328 


New  Forces  in  Old  China 


hundred  millions,  a  nation  which,  until  you  came,  had  no  better  wish 
than  to  live  at  peace  with  themselves  and  all  the  world.  In  the  name  of 
Christ  you  have  sounded  the  call  to  arms !  In  the  name  of  Confucius 
we  respond !  "  ^ 

And  he  closes  the  book  as  follows : — 

"  Unless  you  of  the  West  will  come  to  realize  the  truth ;  unless  you 
will  understand  that  the  events  which  have  shaken  Europe  are  the 
Nemesis  of  a  long  course  of  injustice  and  oppression ;  unless  you  will  learn 
that  the  profound  opposition  between  your  civilization  and  ours  gives  no 
more  ground  why  you  should  regard  us  as  barbarians  than  we  you ;  un- 
less you  will  treat  us  as  a  civilized  power  and  respect  our  customs  and  our 
laws ;  unless  you  will  accord  us  the  treatment  you  would  accord  to  any 
European  nation  and  refrain  from  exacting  conditions  you  would  never 
dream  of  imposing  on  a  Western  power — unless  you  will  do  this,  there  is  no 
hope  of  any  peace  between  us.  You  have  humiliated  the  proudest  nation 
in  the  world  ;  you  have  outraged  the  most  upright  and  just ;  with  what 
results  is  now  abundantly  manifest." 

Whether  the  author  is  really  a  Chinese  official  as  he  claims 
to  be,  or  a  European  resident  in  China  writing  under  a  Chinese 
pseudonym,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  fairly  represents  the 
opinions  of  the  old,  conservative,  ferociously  irreconcilable 
mandarin  class  regarding  the  white  man.  Western  nations,  in 
their  plans  regarding  the  future  of  China,  must  take  into 
consideration  the  existence  of  that  spirit  and  the  acts  which, 
while  not  creating  it,  have  intensified  and  inflamed  it  till  it  has 
come  to  be  something  to  be  reckoned  with.  Undoubtedly,  one 
of  the  lessons  that  the  Chinese  have  learned  from  defeat  is 
bitterer  hatred  of  the  alien  whose  vandalisms  and  atrocities 
were  so  shameful  as  to  nullify,  in  part  at  least,  the  benefit  that 
might  otherwise  have  resulted. 

I  am  glad  to  report  that,  with  the  single  exception  of  the 
Japanese  who  were  universally  assigned  the  first  place  from  the 
view-point  of  good  behaviour,  I  heard  fewer  complaints  regard- 
ing the  American  troops  than  any  other.     One  Colonel,  indeed, 

'  "  Letters  of  a  Chinese  Official,"  pp.  64,  65. 


Fresh  Reason  to  Hate  the  Foreigner      329 

lamented  that  his  regiment  "was  thoroughly  demoralized," 
and  there  were  some  instances  of  intemperance  and  lawlessness, 
in  one  case  a  Japanese  patrol  bringing  in  several  American 
soldiers  who  had  been  found  at  midnight  in  a  Chinese  house. 
But  as  a  whole,  the  conduct  of  the  Americans  was  much  better 
than  that  of  most  of  the  Europeans.  That  the  Chinese  felt  the 
difference  was  apparent  in  the  number  of  American  flags  that 
they  raised  over  their  houses  and  shops.  It  was  significant, 
too,  that  the  districts  of  the  city  that  were  occupied  by 
European  regiments  were  avoided,  as  far  as  possible,  by  the 
Chinese,  while  the  district  controlled  by  the  Americans  was 
thronged. 

Nor  need  any  American  be  ashamed  of  the  policy  of  his 
Government.  It  is  true  that  the  majority  of  the  Ameri- 
cans in  China  believe  that  our  national  policy,  prior  to  and 
during  the  Boxer  uprising,  was  weak  and  short-sighted.  They 
spoke  highly  of  Minister  Conger  and  several  of  the  American 
Consuls,  particularly  of  Consul  John  Fowler,  at  Chefoo.  But 
I  was  repeatedly  told  that  our  Government  did  not  appear  to 
realize  that  there  were  any  other  American  citizens  or 
properties  in  China  than  those  in  the  Peking  Legation ;  that  it 
did  practically  nothing  to  rescue  its  citizens  in  the  prefecture  of 
Paoting-fu  and  the  province  of  Shan-si ;  that,  while  Americans 
condemn  the  policy  of  the  European  Powers,  they  have  been 
for  years  sponging  benefits  secured  by  them  for  all  foreigners ; 
and  that,  if  it  had  not  been  for  their  control  of  the  situation, 
not  an  American  could  have  lived  in  China.  The  opinion  was 
well-nigh  universal  that  the  Washington  Administration  was 
too  much  influenced  by  the  astute  Chinese  Minister,  Wu  Ting- 
fang,  who  was  believed  to  be  an  adept  in  "the  ways  that  are 
dark  and  the  tricks  that  are  vain,"  and  whose  alleged  success 
in  "hoodwinking  the  Government  and  people  of  the  United 
States  ' '  provoked  the  average  foreigner  in  the  Far  East  to  the 
use  of  strong  language. 

Though  I  confess  that  I  am  not  able  satisfactorily  to  explain 


iOWMwi*^*  mi  »  mt  III  III 


330  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

the  course  of  our  Government  in  some  important  particulars, 
it  seems  to  me  that  these  sweeping  criticisms  are  too  severe. 
During  the  dark  days  of  the  siege  of  Peking,  I  was  brought 
into  frequent  correspondence  with  President  McKinley  and 
Secretary  of  State  Hay,  and  I  vividly  and  gratefully  re- 
member the  sympathy  and  cooperation  which  they  invariably 
gave.  They  were  as  anxious  as  any  one,  and  tried  to  do  their 
best  in  circumstances  new,  strange  and  of  extraordinary  diffi- 
culty. As  for  the  Chinese  Minister  to  the  United  States,  of 
course  he  did  what  he  could  to  "save  face"  for  his  country. 
That  was  an  essential  part  of  his  duty.  But  while  we  cannot 
always  agree  with  him,  we  should,  as  friends  of  China, 
recognize  the  fact  that  by  his  ability  and  tact,  he  largely 
increased  popular  interest  in  and  respect  for  the  Chinese 
people. 

Taking  our  Government's  policy  as  a  whole,  I  believe  that  it 
has  been  more  in  accord  with  Christian  principles  than  that  of 
any  other  nation.  If  our  Government  has  erred  in  trusting  the 
Chinese  too  much,  that  is  'at  least  better  than  erring  by  trust- 
ing them  too  little.  If  it  has  failed  to  do  for  its  own  citizens 
all  that  it  ought  to  have  done,  it  has  not  wronged  or  humiliated 
the  Chinese  Government.  There  is  no  blood  of  Chinese 
women  and  children  on  the  hands  of  Americans  in  China.  No 
record  of  outrage  and  iniquity  blackens  the  page  on  which  the 
American  part  of  the  Boxer  outbreak  is  written.  If  our  nation 
has  been  unjust  to  any,  it  has  been  to  its  own.  Generations 
will  pass  before  the  northern  provinces  will  forget  the  bitter- 
ness of  resentment  which  they  now  feel  towards  the  European 
Powers.  But  already  the  Chinese  are  beginning  to  understand 
that  the  American  Government  is  a  friend  ;  that  it  does  not 
seek  their  territory ;  that  it  will  not  be  a  party  to  extortion  ; 
that  it  does  not  want  to  destroy  China  but  to  save  her ;  that  its 
object  is  not  to  rule  her,  but  to  fit  her  to  rule  herself,  and  that  it 
desires  only  freedom  for  its  citizens  to  trade  and  to  communi- 
cate  those   ideas   of  religion   which   we   ourselves   originally 


Fresh  Reason  to  Hate  the  Foreigner      331 

received  from  the  East,  which  have  brought  to  us  inestimable 
blessings,  and  which  will,  in  China  as  in  America,  result  in  the 
noblest  character  for  the  individual  and  the  most  stable 
institutions  for  the  state. 

The  Chinese  keenly  appreciate  the  fresh  evidence  of  Ameri- 
ca's spirit  of  justice  in  connection  with  the  payment  of 
the  indemnity.  When,  before  the  payment  of  the  first  in- 
stallment in  1902,  the  fall  in  the  value  of  the  silver  tael  led  the 
European  Powers  to  insist  that  China  should  pay  in  gold, 
thereby  virtually  increasing  the  indemnity,  it  was  the  United 
States  again  which  did  everything  in  its  power  to  moderate  the 
demands  of  the  European  nations.  If  the  legislative  branch  of 
the  American  Government  would  only  deal  as  justly  with  the 
Chinese  in  the  United  States  as  the  State  Department  deals 
with  the  Chinese  in  China,  the  era  of  good  feeling  would  be 
greatly  promoted. 

But  America  is  not  prominent  enough  in  China  to  make  her 
example  a  determinate  factor  in  the  attitude  of  the  Empire 
towards  foreigners,  nor  are  the  people  as  a  whole  likely  to  dis- 
criminate in  favour  of  a  few  Americans  among  the  hosts  of 
aggressive,  grasping,  domineering  Europeans. 

Moreover,  the  majority  of  the  Chinese  hear  only  what  their 
scholars  and  officials  tell  them,  and  these  worthies  are  careful 
to  adjust  the  account  to  suit  their  own  purposes,  and  to  save 
the  national  "  face."  They  blandly  assure  the  credulous  people 
that  the  foreign  armies  did  not  follow  the  court  because  they 
dared  not ;  that  the  alien  troops  left  the  capital  because  they 
were  driven  out  by  Chinese  patriots ;  and  that  the  Boxers  in- 
flicted crushing  defeat  upon  their  foes.  During  my  visit  in  Tsing- 
tau,  the  Germans  were  digging  sewers,  broad  and  deep,  with 
laterals  to  every  house  and  public  building,  and  many  of  the 
Chinese  actually  believed  that  these  sewers  were  intended  to 
be  underground  passageways,  down  which  the  foreigners  could 
flee  to  their  boats  when  they  were  assailed  by  the  redoubtable 
Boxers  !     The  best-informed  men  I  met  in  China,  from  Sir 


'■''^'"-""~  •""^'^ c -.>»^>- 


332  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Robert  Hart  down,  were  fearful  that  the  end  was  not  near,  and 
that  an  official  order  might  repeat  the  whole  bloody  history. 
At  a  conference  with  forty  representative  missionaries  of  all 
denominations  in  Shanghai,  August,  1901,  a  very  large  majority 
agreed  with  the  Rev.  Dr.  Parker,  of  the  Southern  Methodist 
Church,  in  the  statement:  "We  are  not  out  of  the  trouble 
yet;  the  reactonaries  are  in  the  minority,  but  they  are  in 
power.  They  have  learned  nothing  and  they  will  try  again 
to  drive  us  out  unless  the  Powers  unseat  them  and  reinstate  the 
Emperor  and  the  Reform  Party." 


XXVII 

HOPEFUL  SIGNS 

THE  future  is  not  necessarily  so  doubtful  as  the  facts 
and  opinions  cited  in  the  preceding  chapter  might  in 
themselves  seem  to  indicate.  It  is  true  that  the  daily 
press  often  contains  accounts  of  tumults  and  revolutions  in 
China.  But  an  Empire  a  third  larger  than  all  Europe,  with 
an  enormous  population,  a  weak  central  Government,  corrupt 
local  officials,  few  railroads  and  frequent  floods,  famines  and 
epidemics,  is  certain  to  have  uprisings  somewhere  most  of  the 
time.  A  European  reading  in  the  daily  despatches  from  the 
United  States  of  strikes,  riots,  martial  law,  the  burning  of 
negroes,  the  mobbing  of  Chinese  and  the  corruption  of  cities, 
might  with  equal  justice  get  the  impression  that  our  own 
country  is  in  continual  turmoil.  The  Imperial  Government  in 
China  pays  little  attention  to  what  is  going  on  in  other  parts 
of  the  country. 

"  Each  province  has  its  own  army,  navy,  and  system  of  taxation.  .  .  . 
So  long  as  the  provincial  government  sends  its  Peking  supplies,  ad- 
ministers a  reasonable  sop  to  its  clamorous  provincial  duns,  quells  incip- 
ient insurrections,  gives  employment  to  its  army  of  expectants,  staves  off 
foreign  demands,  avoids  rows  of  all  kinds,  and,  in  a  word,  keeps  up  a 
decent  external  surface  of  respectability,  no  questions  are  asked ;  all  re- 
ports and  promotions  are  passed ;  the  Viceroy  and  his  colleagues  <  enjoy 
happiness,'  and  every  one  makes  his  *  pile.'  The  Peking  Government 
makes  no  new  laws,  does  nothing  of  any  kind  for  any  class  of  persons^ 
leaves  each  province  to  its  own  devices,  and,  like  the  general  staff  of  an 
army  organization,  both  absorbs  successful  men,  and  gives  out  needy  or 
able  men  to  go  forth  and  do  likewise."  * 

«E.  H.  Parker,  "China,"  pp.  167,  169. 
333 


334  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

In  these  circumstances,  the  governors  of  provinces  have  con- 
siderable independent  power  in  internal  affairs,  and  a  rebellion 
even  of  formidable  proportions  is  often  ignored  by  the  Imperial 
Government  in  Peking  as  a  purely  local  matter  to  be  dealt  with 
by  the  provincial  authorities,  much  as  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment leaves  riots  and  mobs  to  the  State  officials. 

Moreover,  to  a  greater  extent  than  any  other  people,  the 
Chinese  are  led  by  their  officials,  and  some  of  the  highest 
officials  in  Peking  and  the  coast  provinces  have  learned  that 
massacres  of  foreigners  result  in  the  coming  of  more  foreigners, 
in  the  capture  and  destruction  of  cities,  in  humiliating  terms 
of  peace,  in  heavy  indemnities,  in  large  losses  of  territory  and 
in  the  degradation  and  perhaps  the  execution  of  the  magistrates 
within  whose  jurisdiction  the  troubles  occur. 

There  are,  moreover,  unmistakable  indications  of  a  new 
movement  among  the  Chinese.  One  reason  why  they  have 
been  so  ignorant  of  the  rest  of  the  world  and  even  of  distant 
parts  of  their  own  country  was  the  lack  of  any  facilities  for 
transmitting  mail.  The  only  way  that  the  missionaries  in  the 
interior  could  get  their  letters  was  by  employing  private  mes- 
sengers or  availing  themselves  of  a  chance  traveller.  But  now 
a  modern  post-office  system,  superintended  by  Sir  Robert  Hart, 
already  includes  500  of  the  principal  cities  of  the  Empire  and 
is  being  rapidly  extended  to  others. 

Ten  years  ago,  there  were  practically  no  newspapers  in  China 
except  those  published  by  foreigners  in  the  ports,  all  of  which 
were  in  English  save  one  which  was  in  the  German  language. 
The  only  periodicals  in  Chinese  were  a  few  issued  by  the 
missionaries  with,  of  course,  a  very  limited  circulation,  chiefly 
among  the  Christians.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  a  Chinese 
press  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term.  Now,  besides  a  French, 
a  Russian  and  a  second  German  paper,  there  are  nearly  a  hun- 
dred Chinese  newspapers,  many  of  them  edited  by  the  Chinese 
themselves  and  others  by  Japanese,  and  all,  aided  by  the  rail- 
way, the  telegraph  and  the  post-office,  bringing  new  ideas  to 


Hopeful  Signs  335 

multitudes.  On  the  basis  of  a  joint  report  to  the  Throne  by 
Viceroy  Chang  Chih-tung  and  Chang  Pei-hsi,  chancellor  of  the 
Peking  University,  an  imperial  decree  has  ordered  the  inau- 
guration of  a  new  system  of  education.  The  plan  is  to  have  a 
university  in  the  capital  of  each  province,  with  auxiliary  pre- 
fectural  and  district  colleges  and  schools  and  the  whole  system 
to  culminate  in  the  Imperial  University  in  Peking.  In  all  these 
institutions  western  arts  and  sciences  are  to  be  taught  side  by 
side  with  the  old  Confucian  classics.  "  The  Viceroys  and 
Governors  of  provinces  are  commanded  to  order  their  subordi- 
nates to  hasten  the  establishment  of  these  schools.  Let  this 
decree  be  published  through  the  Empire." 

Nor  have  the  new  imperial  decrees  stopped  here.  A  few 
decades  ago,  ambitious  Chinese  youths  who  sought  an  educa- 
tion abroad  at  their  own  expense  were  imprisoned  on  their  re- 
turn to  their  native  land.  One  whom  I  met  in  Shantung  gave 
me  a  vivid  account  of  his  arrest  and  incarceration  in  a  filthy 
dungeon  as  if  he  had  been  a  common  criminal.  But  a  recent 
edict  of  the  Emperor  directs  the  provincial  Governors  to  select 
young  men  of  ability  and  send  them  to  Europe  for  special  train- 
ing with  a  view  to  their  occupying  high  posts  on  their  return. 

One  of  the  most  firmly  rooted  customs  of  old  China  was  the 
examination  essay  for  literary  degrees  on  some  purely  Chinese 
subject  relating  to  a  remote  past.  But  August  29,  1901,  to  the 
amazement  of  the  literati,  an  imperial  edict  abolished  that 
time-honoured  custom  and  directed  that  in  the  future  candi- 
dates for  degrees  as  well  as  for  office  should  submit  short  essays 
on  such  modern  topics  as  Western  science,  governments,  laws, 
and  kindred  subjects.  The  following  extracts  from  the  ex- 
amination questions  for  the  Chu  Jen  (M.  A.)  degree  in  1903 
will  indicate  the  extraordinary  character  of  this  change. 

Honan —  "  What  improvements  are  to  be  derived  from  the 
study  of  foreign  agriculture,  commerce,  and  postal 
systems  ? 


33^ 


New  Forces  in  Old  China 


Kiang-su  atid  An-huei — "What  are  the  chief  ideas  underlying 
Austrian  and  German  prosperity  ?  How  do  for- 
eigners regulate  the  press,  post-office,  commerce, 
railways,  banks,  bank-notes,  commercial  schools, 
taxation — and  how  do  they  get  faithful  men? 
Where  is  the  Caucasus  and  how  does  Russia  rule 
it? 

Kiang-si —  "  How  many  sciences  theoretical  and  practical  are 
there?  In  what  order  should  they  be  studied? 
Explain  free  trade  and  protection.  What  are  the 
military  services  of  the  world  ?  What  is  the  bear- 
ing of  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  the  Treaty  of  Berlin 
and  the  Monroe  Doctrine  on  the  Far  East? 
Wherein  lies  the  naval  supremacy  of  Great  Britain  ? 
What  is  the  bearing  of  the  Siberian  Railway  and 
Nicaragua  Canal  on  China  ? 

Shantu7ig —  "What  is  Herbert  Spencer's  philosophy  of  sociology? 
Define  the  relations  of  land,  labour  and  capital. 
State  how  best  to  develop  the  resources  of  China 
by  mines  and  railway  ?  How  best  to  modify  our 
civil  and  criminal  laws  to  regain  authority  over 
those  now  under  extra-territoriality  privileges  ? 
How  best  to  guard  land  and  sea  frontiers  from  the 
advance  of  foreign  Powers  ? 

Fiikien —  **  Which  Western  nations  have  paid  most  attention  to 
education  and  what  is  the  result  ?  State  the  lead- 
ing features  of  the  military  systems  of  Great  Britain, 
Germany,  Russia,  and  France.  Which  are  the 
best  colonizers  ?  How  should  tea  and  silk  be 
properly  cultivated  ?  What  is  the  government, 
industries  and  education  of  Switzerland  which, 
though  small,  is  independent  of  surrounding  great 
powers  ? 

Kwang-tung — (Canton) — "What  should  be  our  best  coinage, 
gold,  silver  and  copper  like  other  Western  coun- 
tries, or  what  ?  How  could  the  workhouse  system 
be  started  throughout  China  ?  How  to  fortify 
Kwang-tung  province?  How  to  get  funds  and 
professors   for   the  new  education?     How  to  pro- 


Hopeful  Signs  337 

mote  Chinese  international  commerce,  new  indus- 
tries and  savings-banks,  versus  the  gambling  houses 
of  China  ? 

Hunan—  "  What  is  the  policy  of  Japan— only  following  other 
nations  or  what  ?  How  to  choose  competent  diplo- 
matic men  ?  Why  does  China  feel  its  small  na- 
tional debt  so  heavy,  while  England  and  France 
with  far  greater  debts  do  not  feel  it  ? 

Hiipeh —  ' '  State  the  educational  systems  of  Sparta  and  Athens. 
What  are  the  naval  strategic  points  of  Great  Britain 
and  which  should  be  those  of  China  ?  Which  na- 
tion has  the  best  system  of  stamp  duty  ?  State 
briefly  the  geological  ages  of  the  earth,  and  the 
bronze  and  iron  ages.  Trace  the  origin  of  Egyp- 
tian, Babylonian  and  Chinese  writings."  ' 

The  result  of  these  edicts  is  that  the  Chinese  are  buying 
Western  books  as  never  before.  Examinations  cannot  be  passed 
without  them.  The  mission  presses,  though  run  to  their  full 
capacity,  cannot  keep  up  with  the  demand  for  their  publica- 
tions. Dr.  Timothy  Richard  of  Shanghai  reports  that  a  quarter 
of  a  million  dollars'  worth  of  text-books  were  sold  in  that  city 
in  1902,  a  single  order  received  by  the  Presbyterian  Press 
involving  a  bill  of  $328  for  postage  alone,  as  the  buyer  insisted 
that  the  books  should  be  sent  by  mail.  Mission  schools  that 
teach  the  English  language  are  thronged  with  students,  many 
of  them  from  the  higher  classes,  and  every  foreigner  who  is 
willing  to  teach  Western  learning  finds  his  services  eagerly 
sought. 

China  cannot  be  reformed  by  paper  edicts  even  though  they 
are  written  by  an  Emperor.  Many  reforms  have  been  solemnly 
proclaimed  in  former  years  that  accomplished  little  except  to 
"save  face"  for  the  Government.  We  need  not  therefore 
imagine  that  the  millennium  is  to  come  in  China  this  year. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  the  reform  decrees  that  have 

'  Report  of  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Christian  and  General 
Knowledge  Among  the  Chinese,  Shanghai,  1903. 


338  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

been  issued  since  the  Boxer  uprising  mean  something  more 
and  are  achieving  something  more  than  any  other  reform  move- 
ments that  China  ever  saw  before.  Dr.  Arthur  H.  Smith,  who 
knows  China  and  the  Chinese  as  thoroughly  as  any  other  liv- 
ing man,  writes: — 

"  We  behold  the  kernel  of  the  reforms  ordered  by  His  Majesty,  Kuang 
Hsura  in  1898,  and  which  led  to  his  dethronement  and  imprisonment,  sub- 
stantially adopted  less  than  three  years  later  by  the  Empress  Dowager  and 
her  advisers.  .  .  .  The  bare  notation  of  the  tenor  of  these  far-reach- 
ing edicts  gives  to  the  Occidental  reader  but  a  vague  notion  of  the  tre- 
mendous intellectual  revolution  which  they  connote.  Never  before  was 
there  such  an  order  from  any  government  involving  the  reconstruction  of 
the  views  of  so  many  millions,  by  the  study  of  the  methods  of  government 
in  other  nations.  .  .  .  It  is  obvious  to  one  who  knows  anything  of  the 
Chinese  educational  system  of  the  past  millennium  that  the  introduction 
of  the  new  methods  will  involve  its  radical  reconstruction  from  top  to  bot- 
tom. Western  geography,  mathematics,  science,  history,  and  philosophy 
will  be  everywhere  studied.  The  result  cannot  fail  to  be  an  expansion  of 
the  intellectual  horizon  of  the  Chinese  race  comparable  to  that  which  in 
Europe  followed  the  Crusades.  This  will  be  a  long  process  and  a  slow 
one,  but  it  is  a  certain  one.  .  .  .  All  signs  indicate  that  China  is  open 
as  never  before." 

Undoubtedly  the  most  powerful  present  factor  in  the  policy 
of  the  Empire,  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  best  types  of  the 
educated  Chinese,  is  Yuan  Shih  Kai,  Viceroy  of  Chih-li  and 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Chinese  army.  He  is  not  a  Man- 
chu,  like  many  of  the  high  officials  of  China,  but  a  pure  Chi- 
nese like  Li  Hung  Chang.  Born  in  the  Province  of  Honan, 
he  quickly  developed  unusual  abilities.  After  a  brilliant  record 
for  a  young  man  in  his  native  land,  he  was  sent  to  Korea  as  the 
representative  of  the  Emperor  of  China  and  for  nine  years  he 
was  a  conspicuous  member  of  the  diplomatic  corps  of  the 
Korean  capital.  Returning  to  China  in  1895,  he  was  made 
commander  of  a  division  of  the  "New  Imperial  Army" — a 
post  in  which  he  manifested  high  military  and  administrative 


Hopeful  Signs  339 

qualities.  He  organized  and  equipped  his  troops  after  the  best 
foreign  models  and  they  speedily  became  so  effective  that,  if 
they  had  been  more  numerous  and  if  he  had  been  given  a  free 
hand  in  using  them  in  Peking,  the  history  of  1900  might  have 
been  different.  I  have  had  occasion  elsewhere  ^  to  give  some 
account  of  the  soldiers  who  escorted  me  through  the  interior. 
December,  igoo,  he  was  appointed  Governor  of  the  great  prov- 
ince of  Shantung.  It  was  here  that  I  met  him,  residing  at  Chi- 
nan-fu,  the  capital  of  the  province.  As  soon  as  possible  after 
my  arrival,  I  sent  my  card  and  letters  of  introduction  to  the 
famous  Governor,  and  he  promptly  replied  that  he  would  re- 
ceive me  at  one  o'clock  the  following  day.  At  the  appointed 
hour,  we  called.  With  true  courtesy,  he  met  us  at  the  entrance 
of  the  palace  grounds  and  escorted  us  into  his  private  room, 
which  was  neatly  but  very  plainly  furnished.  He  impressed 
me  as  a  remarkable  man.  He  was  then  forty-one  years  of  age, 
of  medium  height,  rather  stout,  with  a  strong  face,  a  clear, 
frank  eye,  and  a  most  engaging  manner.  He  would  be  con- 
sidered a  man  of  striking  appearance  anywhere. 

He  was  very  cordial,  and  we  had  a  long  and  interesting  con- 
versation. He  surprised  me  by  his  familiarity  with  America, 
especially  as  he  spoke  no  English  and  had  never  been  out  of 
Asia. 

Partly  at  this  interview  and  partly  from  other  sources,  I 
heard  more  of  his  plan  to  start  a  daily  newspaper,  a  Military 
Academy  and  a  Literary  College.  His  idea  was  to  have  in 
each  institution  two  students  from  each  of  the  108  counties  in 
the  province,  and  thus  train  a  body  of  men  who  would  be  able 
to  carry  "light  and  learning"  into  their  respective  districts. 
He  appeared  to  feel  that  the  only  hope  of  averting  such  catas- 
trophes as  the  Boxer  uprising  lay  in  enlightening  the  people. 
In  answer  to  a  question  as  to  the  teaching  of  foreign  languages, 
he  said  that  English,  French  and  German  would  be  taught,  but 
that  German  would  probably  be  the  most  useful  of  the  foreign 

1  Chapter  VII. 


340  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

tongues  on  account  of  the  number  of  Germans  in  the  eastern 
part  of  the  province. 

The  Governor  had  shown  the  breadth  of  his  inteUigence,  and 
at  the  same  time  his  appreciation  of  the  high  character  of  Prot- 
estant missionaries,  by  inviting  one  of  them,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Wat- 
son M.  Hayes,  then  President  of  the  Presbyterian  Mission  Col- 
lege at  Teng-chou,  to  become  the  President  of  the  Literary 
College.  I  may  anticipate  so  far  as  to  state  that  Dr.  Hayes 
accepted  the  invitation  and  began  his  work  with  every  promise 
of  large  success.  But  unfortunately  the  rigid  requirement  of 
the  Government  that  each  student  should  worship  the  tablet  of 
Confucius  at  stated  intervals  and  the  refusal  of  Yuan  Shih  Kai's 
successor  to  exempt  Christian  students  made  Dr.  Hayes  feel 
that  he  had  no  alternative  but  to  resign.  Whether  Yuan  Shih 
Kai,  if  he  had  remained  in  Shantung,  would  have  been  more 
lenient,  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  say.  I  cherish  the  hope 
that  he  would  have  been,  for  he  is  a  large-minded  man  and  he 
discerns  the  signs  of  the  times  more  clearly  than  many  of  his 
countrymen.  But  he  is  nevertheless  a  loyal  disciple  of  Confu- 
cius and  he  might  also  have  felt  that  questions  of  state  policy 
were  involved.  It  is  suggestive,  however,  that  in  the  spring  of 
1898  Yuan  Shih  Kai  had  selected  a  Protestant  minister,  the 
Rev.  Herbert  E.  House,  D.  D.,  (now  of  the  Canton  Christian 
College)  as  the  tutor  of  his  own  son,  Yuen  Yen  Tai.  Dr. 
House  says,  by  the  way,  that  he  found  the  youth  "wonderfully 
pure  in  his  thought,  high  in  his  ambition  and  intense  in  his 
passion  for  knowledge — the  most  patient  and  diligent  student  I 
ever  knew." 

But  to  return  to  the  interview  with  Yuan  Shih  Kai.  The 
only  other  Chinese  present  was  Tang  Hsiao-chuan,  a  man  of 
about  thirty-five,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  Provincial  Foreign 
Office  with  the  rank  of  Tao-tai.  He  had  spent  two  years  at 
Columbia  University  in  New  York  City,  spoke  English  fluently 
and  impressed  me  as  a  fine  man.  Like  the  Governor,  his  man- 
ners were  courtly  and  refined.     He  appeared  to  be  a  man  of 


.^*V"  »>*-^-#^<>— ^.^ ' 


Hopeful  Signs  341 

the  diplomatic  type  and  worthy  of  the  promotion  that  he  will 
doubtless  receive. 

Early  the  next  morning  Captain  Wang  came  on  behalf  of  the 
Governor  to  return  our  visit.  He  was  the  translator  of  the 
Foreign  Office  and  the  tutor  of  one  of  the  Governor's  sons  whom 
he  was  teaching  English  grammar,  arithmetic,  geography  and 
history.  I  was  interested  to  find  that  he  had  spent  eight  years 
at  Philips  Academy,  Massachusetts,  and  that  he  spoke  English 
with  the  grace  of  a  cultured  gentleman. 

The  policy  of  Yuan  Shih  Kai  during  the  Boxer  troubles  in- 
dicated the  wisdom  and  the  courage  of  the  man.  Disturbances 
had  already  begun  when  he  assumed  office.  It  was  not  far 
southwest  of  Chinan-fu  that  Brooks,  the  devoted  English  mis- 
sionary, was  murdered  by  the  Boxers.  Yu  Hsien  was  then 
Governor  of  Shantung  but  about  that  time  was  transferred  to 
Shan-si,  Yuan  Shih  Kai  taking  his  place.  If  the  notorious  for- 
eign-hating Yu  Hsien  had  remained  in  Shantung,  probably  he 
would  have  massacred  the  Shantung  missionaries  as  he  did 
those  of  Shan-si,  where  he  invited  them  all  to  his  yamen,  and 
then  began  the  butchery  by  killing  three  missionaries  with  his 
own  hand.  But  Yuan  Shih  Kai  foresaw  the  inevitable  result 
of  such  barbarity  and  determined  to  restrain  the  Boxers  and 
protect  foreigners.  He  succeeded  with  the  foreigners,  not  one 
being  killed  after  he  took  control,  and  all  being  helped  as  far 
as  possible  to  escape.  As  soon  as  the  storm  had  passed,  he 
officially  wrote  to  the  missionaries  who  had -taken  refuge  at  the 
ports : — 

"  Everything  is  now  quiet.  If  you,  reverend  sirs,  wish  to  return  to  the 
interior,  I  would  beg  you  first  give  me  word  that  I  may  most  certainly 
order  the  military  everywhere  most  carefully  to  protect  and  escort." 

This  apparently  pro-foreign  policy  brought  upon  the  Gov- 
ernor, for  a  time,  no  small  obloquy  from  the  fiercely-fanatical 
conservatives  who  wanted  to  murder  every  foreigner  within 
reach.     Indeed  the  fury  of  the  populace  was  so  great  that  he 


342  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

was  bitterly  reviled  as  "a  secondary  devil,"  and  his  life  was 
repeatedly  threatened.  But  despite  the  clamour  of  the  mob 
and  the  opposition  of  his  associates  in  the  government  of  the 
province,  he  maintained  his  position  with  iron  inflexibility. 
Afterwards,  however,  the  people  as  well  as  his  official  subordi- 
nates realized  that  he  had  saved  them  from  the  awful  punish- 
ment that  was  inflicted  upon  the  neighbouring  province  of 
Chih-li,  and  his  power  and  prestige  became  greater  than  ever. 

During  my  visit  in  Chining-chou,  in  the  remote  southwestern 
part  of  the  province,  an  incident  occurred  which  illustrated  at 
once  the  power  of  Yuan  Shih  Kai's  name  and  the  heroic  devo- 
tion of  the  missionaries.  The  day  after  our  arrival,  a  friendly 
Chinese  official  brought  word  that  Governor  Yuan  Shih  Kai's 
mother  had  died  the  day  before.  Chinese  custom  in  such  cir- 
cumstances required  him  to  resign  his  office  and  go  into  retire- 
ment for  three  years.  Now  Consul  Fowler  and  all  the  foreign- 
ers whom  I  had  met  in  the  ports  had  declared  that  the  safety 
of  foreigners  in  Shantung  depended  on  the  Governor,  that  as 
long  as  he  was  in  power  white  men  were  safe,  but  that  his  death 
or  removal  might  bring  another  tumult  of  anti-foreign  fury. 
On  the  strength  of  his  known  friendship,  mission  work  was 
being  resumed  and  the  missionaries  were  returning  to  the  in- 
terior. 

Now  this  man,  on  whose  continuance  in  office  so  much  de- 
pended, was  apparently  to  retire  and  the  future  made  all  un- 
certain again.  The  Empress  Dowager  might  give  the  post  to  a 
foreign-hater.  An  indifferent  or  even  a  weak  pro-foreign  Gov- 
ernor would  be  little  better,  for  a  strong  man  was  needed  to 
hold  the  population  of  Shantung  in  hand.  The  Chinese  quickly 
take  their  cue  from  a  high  official  and  even  a  suspicion  that  he 
would  not  interfere  might  again  loose  the  dogs  of  war.  True, 
we  had  seen  no  signs  of  enmity,  but  appearances  are  deceptive 
in  Asia.  The  smile  of  the  mighty  Governor  meant  a  smile 
from  every  one.  But  what  fires  were  smouldering  beneath  no 
one  could  know.     Even  in  America,  there  are  lawless  men  who 


Hopeful  Signs  343 

would  mob  Chinese  in  a  minute  if  they  knew  that  the  police 
were  weak  or  indifferent. 

I  did  not  fear  for  myself,  for  my  plans  compelled  me  to 
journey  on  to  Ichou-fu  anyway.  But  I  did  not  like  to  leave 
Mr.  Laughlin  and  Dr.  Lyon,  who  had  come  with  the  inten- 
tion of  remaining  to  reopen  the  mission  work  at  Chining-chou. 
But  with  the  true  missionary  spirit,  they  bravely  decided  to 
stay.  A  week  later,  they  learned  that  in  view  of  the  importance 
of  the  province  and  his  confidence  in  the  great  Governor,  the 
Emperor  had  by  a  special  dispensation  shortened  the  period  of 
official  mourning  from  three  years  to  one  hundred  days.  During 
that  time,  the  Fan-tai  (treasurer)  would  be  the  nominal  head 
of  the  province,  though  it  was  quietly  understood  that  even 
then  the  Governor  would  be  the  "  power  behind  the  throne." 
But  as  this  was  not  known  when  the  decision  to  remain  was 
made,  the  heroism  of  the  missionaries  was  none  the  less 
striking. 

The  attitude  of  Yuan  Shih  Kai  is  fairly  indicated  in  the  reg- 
ulations which  he  caused  to  be  widely  published  after  the  Boxer 
outbreak.     Some  of  these  were  as  follows  :  — 

"  In  order  to  protect  foreigners  from  violence  and  all  mission  property 
from  burning  and  other  destruction,  all  civil  and  military  officials  with  all 
their  subordinates  (including  literati,  constables,  village  elders,  et  a/.), 
must  use  their  utmost  endeavours  to  insure  their  protection.  Persons  re- 
fusing to  submit  to  officials  in  these  matters  may  be  instantly  executed 
without  further  reference  to  the  Governor,  and  any  one  who  rescues  for- 
eigners from  violence  will  be  amply  rewarded. 

"  Any  persons  having  been  found  guilty  of  destroying  mission  property 
or  using  violence  to  foreigners  shall  be  severely  dealt  with  according  to 
the  laws  which  refer  to  highway  robbers,  and  in  addition  to  this  their 
goods  and  property  shall  be  confiscated  for  the  public  use. 

"  If  injury  to  missionaries  or  destruction  of  property  occurs  in  any  dis- 
trict whatever,  both  civil  and  military  officials  of  said  district  shall  be  de- 
graded and  reported  to  the  Throne. 

"  The  elders,  constables,  e^  a/.,  of  every  village  shall  do  their  utmost  to 
protect  missionaries  and  their  property.     If  in  the  future  there  occurs  in 


344  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

any  village  destruction  of  property  or  violence  to  a  missionary,  the  head- 
men of  such  village  shall  be  dealt  with  according  to  the  edict  issued 
during  the  twenty-second  year  of  the  present  Emperor.  And,  in  addition 
to  this  they  shall  be  required  to  present  themselves  to  the  yamen  and 
make  good  all  losses.  The  constables  of  such  villages  shall  be  severely 
dealt  with  and  expelled  from  office  forever. 

«•  All  civil  and  military  officials  in  whose  districts  none  of  these  offenses 
named  above  occur  in  one  year  shall  be  rewarded  with  the  third  degree 
of  merit,  and  three  years  of  such  freedom  shall  entitle  the  same  officials  to 
promotion. 

"  Rewards  will  also  be  given  to  village  elders  and  constables  in  whose 
district  no  disturbance  occurs." 

These  are  rather  remarkable  words  from  a  high  Chinese 
official.  Now  their  author  occupies  a  position  of  even  greater 
authority,  for  after  the  death  of  Li  Hung  Chang,  he  was  ap- 
pointed to  succeed  him  as  Viceroy  of  Chih-li  in  November, 
1 90 1,  Chih-li  is  not  only  one  of  the  greatest  provinces  of  the 
Empire  with  a  population  of  20,937,000,  but  it  includes  the 
imperial  city  of  Peking  and  the  ports  of  Tong-ku  and  Tien- 
tsin, the  gateways  to  the  capital.  The  Viceroy  thus  controls 
all  avenues  of  approach  to  the  Throne  and  is,  in  a  sense, 
charged  with  the  protection  of  the  royal  family.  He  has  free 
access  at  all  times  to  the  Emperor  and  the  Empress  Dowager 
with  whom  he  is  a  prime  favourite.  It  was  this  position  of  high 
vantage  which  enabled  Li  Hung  Chang  to  become  well-nigh 
omnipotent  in  China.  Yuan  Shih  Kai  is  not  such  a  wily 
schemer  as  his  distinguished  predecessor  and  he  is  not  likely  to 
use  his  position  for  self-aggrandizement  to  the  extent  that  Li 
Hung  Chang  did.  But  he  is  quite  as  able  a  man  and  more 
frank  and  reliable.  He  has  enemies,  as  every  public  man  has, 
especially  in  Asia.  Some  can  never  forgive  him  for  his  supposed 
part  in  the  virtual  dethronement  of  the  Emperor  several  years 
ago.  It  is  alleged  that  the  Emperor  counted  on  the  army  of 
Yuan  Shih  Kai  to  support  him  in  his  reform  policy,  but  that 
Yuan  consulted  with  Jung  Lu,  who  was  then  the  Viceroy  of 
Chih-li,  and  that  that  worthy  promptly  laid  the  whole  matter 


.«• 


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s  -a 


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o 


Hopeful  Signs  345 

before  the  Empress  Dowager ;  the  result  being  that  the  young 
Emperor  awoke  one  morning  to  find  himself  practically  stripped 
of  his  imperial  power. ^     Yuan  has  been  freely  charged  with 
treachery  in  this  coup  d'etat.     Others  hold  that  he  did  not  in- 
tend treachery  but  only  consultation  with  his  superior  officer 
as  to  what  ought  to  be  done  in  a  grave  crisis  which  was  in 
itself  revolutionary  in  character.     Yuan  was  far  from  being  a 
reactionary,  but  he  was  wise  enough  to  see  that  China  could 
not  be  suddenly  transformed,  and  he  naturally  hesitated  to  lend 
himself  to  an  enterprise  which  he  believed  to  be  premature  and 
to  be  destined  to  result  in  certain  failure.     The  soundness  of 
his  judgment  is  now  generally  recognized,  and  the  Emperor  him- 
self is  said  to  be  almost  as  friendly  towards  him  as  the  Em- 
press Dowager,  who  counts  him  one  of  her  ablest  supporters. 

In  the  present  critical  condition  of  far  eastern  politics,  much 
depends  upon  the  policy  of  Yuan  Shih  Kai.  With  exalted 
rank,  the  ear  of  the  Empress  Dowager  and  the  command  of  the 
only  real  soldiers  that  China  possesses,  he  can  do  more  than 
any  other  man  to  influence  the  course  of  the  Empire.  Of 
course,  one  official,  however  powerful,  cannot  absolutely  control 
national  conditions.  The  forces  at  work  both  within  and  with- 
out the  Empire  are  too  vast  and  too  complicated.  Neverthe- 
less, the  fact  that  such  an  able  and  far-seeing  man  as  Yuan 
Shih  Kai  is  now  the  most  influential  Viceroy  in  China,  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief of  the  Army,  and  the  trusted  adviser  of  the 
Empress  Dowager  may  be  fairly  included  among  the  hopeful 
signs  for  the  future. 

Most  significant  of  all  is  the  development  of  missionary  work 
since  the  Boxer  outbreak.  Not  only  have  all  the  destroyed 
churches  and  chapels  been  rebuilt,  but  they  are,  as  a  rule, 
crowded  with  worshippers.  In  the  Wei-hsien  station  field  in 
Shantung,  where  every  missionary  was  driven  out  and  all  the 
mission  property  destroyed,  437  Chinese  were  baptized  last 
•  Cf.  Imperial  Decree  of  Sept.  22,  1898,  quoted  in  Pott,  "  The  Out- 
break in  China,"  pp.  55sq. 


34^  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

year.  In  Peking,  the  large  new  Presbyterian  church,  though 
erected  near  that  great  cistern  in  which  nearly  loo  bodies  were 
found  after  the  siege,  is  filled  at  almost  every  service  and  the 
churches  of  other  denominations  are  also  largely  attended.  At 
a  single  service,  Dr.  Pentecost  preached  to  800  attentive  Chi- 
nese young  men.  Even  in  Paoting-fu,  where  every  remaining 
missionary  and  scores  of  Chinese  Christians  were  killed,  and 
where  one  might  suppose  that  no  Chinese  would  ever  dare  to 
confess  Christ,  even  in  bloodstained  Paoting-fu,  the  missionaries 
are  preaching  daily  to  throngs  of  attentive  Chinese  in  the  city, 
while  at  the  spacious  new  compounds  outside  the  walls  the 
schools  and  hospitals  and  churches  are  taxed  to  care  for  the 
hundreds  who  go  to  them.  In  the  Canton  field,  long  known 
for  its  anti-foreign  feeling,  1,100  Chinese  were  baptized  last 
year  by  the  Presbyterians  alone  and  the  missionaries  are  im- 
portunately calling  for  reinforcements  to  enable  them  to  meet 
the  multiplied  demands  upon  them.  Even  the  province  of 
Hunan,  which  a  decade  ago  was  almost  as  inhospitable  to  for- 
eigners as  Thibet,  now  has  half  a  hundred  Protestant  and  Cath- 
olic missionaries  developing  a  prosperous  work.  Bishop  Graves, 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  returned  recently  from  an 
episcopal  visitation  with  this  inspiring  message : — 

"  The  condition  and  outlook  of  the  Church's  work  in  the  province  of 
Kiang-su  are  more  encouraging  than  ever  before.  Hitherto  we  have  had 
to  persuade  people  to  be  taught.  Now  they  come  to  us  themselves,  not 
one  by  one,  but  in  numbers.  .  .  .  That  there  is  a  strong  movement 
towards  Christianity  setting  in  is  evident."  * 

Not  only  has  the  old  work  been  resumed  with  vigour  but  much 
new  work  has  been  opened.  Within  a  year  and  a  quarter  after 
the  relief  of  the  Legations  by  the  Allies,  twenty-five  new  mis- 
sion stations  had  been  opened  and  373  new  missionaries  had 
entered  China,  and  each  succeeding  year  has  seen  considerable 
additions  to  the  number.  The  Rev.  Dr.  George  F.  Pentecost, 
who  visited  China  in  1903,  writes  — 

•  •<  The  Spirit  of  Missions,"  July,  1904. 


Hopeful  Signs  347 

"  The  outlook  seems  to  me  most  encouraging.  I  find  the  more  thought- 
ful missionaries  enthusiastic  in  their  forecast  for  the  future.  My  own 
judgment  is  that  the  cause  of  missions,  so  far  as  foundation  work  and  in- 
creased power  for  work,  has  been  advanced  at  least  twenty-five  years  by 
the  massacres  of  1900.  I  think  the  common  people  are  thoroughly  con- 
vinced that  missions  cannot  be  destroyed,  and  I  am  equally  convinced 
that  the  authorities  are  also  convinced  that  it  is  vain  for  them  to  rage  and 
set  themselves  against  Christianity.  The  one  thing  which  an  Asiatic 
recognizes  is  power  and  facts  accomplished,  and  in  the  rebuilding  of  our 
missions  and  the  awakening  already  begun  and  the  reinforcement  of  the 
missions  in  men  and  material  means  they  see  and  recognize  power.  Their 
own  temples  are  falling  into  decay  and  ruin  and  our  new  buildings  are 
rising  in  prominence  and  beauty.  Their  ignorant  priesthood  is  sinking 
deeper  and  deeper  into  degradation,  while  our  missionaries  are  every- 
where known  and  recognized  as  men  of  '  light  and  learning.'  .  .  . 
It  seems  to  me  from  all  I  can  learn  that  there  is  no  fear  of  another  anti- 
foreign  outbreak." 

And  these  are  but  a  few  of  the  many  illustrations  that  could 
be  given.  Everywhere,  the  doors  are  open  and  Chinese  are 
now  being  baptized  by  Protestant  missionaries  at  the  rate  of 
about  15,000  a  year,  while  a  far  larger  number  are  enrolled  as 
inquirers  or  catechumens.  The  interdenominational  conference 
of  missionaries  at  Kuling,  August  7,  1903,  declared  : — 

"  It  is  now  a  fact  that  there  is  not  one  of  the  more  than  nineteen  hun- 
dred counties  of  China  and  Manchuria  from  which  we  are  shut  out,  and 
before  the  hundredth  year  of  our  work  begins,  we  can  say  that  if  the  gospel 
is  not  preached  to  every  creature  in  China,  the  reason  must  be  sought  out- 
side China.  The  opportunities  of  work  are  varied  in  their  kind,  vast  in 
their  extent.  Never  before  have  men  crowded  to  hear  the  gospel  as  they 
are  crowding  now  in  the  open  air  and  indoors  ;  in  our  chapels  and  in  our 
guest-rooms  we  have  opportunities  to  preach  Christ  such  as  can  scarcely 
be  found  outside  China.  Never  before  has  there  been  such  an  eager  de- 
sire for  education  as  there  is  now  ;  our  schools,  both  of  elementary  and  of 
higher  grades,  are  full,  and  everywhere  applicants  have  to  be  refused. 
Never  before  has  there  been  such  a  demand  for  Christian  literature  as 
there  is  now  ;  our  tract  societies  and  all  engaged  in  supplying  converts 
and  inquirers  with  reading  material  are  doing  their  utmost,  but  are  not 
able  to  overtake  the  demand ;  and  the  demand  is  certain  to  increase,  for 


348  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

it  comes  from  the  largest  number  of  people  in  the  world  reading  one  lan- 
guage. The  medical  work  has  from  the  iirst  found  an  entrance  into  hearts 
that  were  closed  against  other  forms  of  work.  Its  sphere  of  influence 
grows  ever  wider  and  is  practically  unlimited.  Unique  opportunities  of 
service  are  afforded  us  by  the  large  number  of  blind  people,  by  lepers, 
and  those  suffering  from  incurable  diseases  ;  by  the  deaf  and  dumb,  the 
insane  and  other  afflicted  people.  In  China  the  poor  are  always  with  us, 
and  whensoever  we  will  we  may  do  them  good." 

Not  least  among  the  hopeful  signs  for  the  future  is  the  new 
treaty  between  the  United  States  and  China  which  was  signed 
at  Shanghai,  October  8,  1903,  and  unanimously  ratified  by  the 
United  States  Senate  December  18,  1903.  It  not  only  secured 
an  "open  door"  in  China  for  Americans,  but,  if  the  veteran 
"most  favoured  nation  "  clause  is  again  pressed  into  service,  a 
priceless  benefit  to  the  whole  civilized  world  as  well  as  to 
China  herself.  For  this  treaty  abolished  the  exasperating 
"likin"  (the  inland  tax  heretofore  exacted  by  local  officials  on 
goods  in  transit  through  their  territories)  ;  confirmed  the  right 
of  American  citizens  to  trade,  reside,  travel,  and  own  property 
in  China ;  extended  to  China  the  United  States'  copyright 
laws ;  gained  a  promise  from  the  Chinese  Government  to  es- 
tablish a  patent  office  in  which  the  inventions  of  United  States* 
citizens  may  be  protected ;  and  made  valuable  regulations  re- 
garding trade-marks,  mining  concessions,  judicial  tribunals  for 
the  hearing  of  complaints,  diplomatic  intercourse,  and  several 
other  matters  which,  though  sanctioned  by  custom,  were  often 
abridged  or  violated. 

The  treaty,  moreover,  called  for  the  opening  of  two  additional 
treaty  ports,  one  of  which  is  at  Teng-tien-fu,  more  generally 
known  as  Mukden,  important  not  only  as  a  city  of  200,000  in- 
habitants but  as  the  capital  of  Manchuria  and  with  both  rail 
and  river  connection  with  the  Gulf  of  Pe-chi-li  and  the  imperial 
province  of  Chih-li.  The  other  is  at  An-tung,  which  is  im- 
portant because  of  its  situation  on  the  Yalu  River  opposite  the 
Korean  frontier.     Of  course,  the  Russia-Japan  War  has  post- 


Hopeful  Signs  349 

poned  the  opening  of  these  ports,  but  the  recognition  of  China's 
right  to  open  them  by  treaty  with  the  United  States  is  none  the 
less  significant. 

Most  important  of  all,  the  treaty  removes,  so  far  as  any  such 
enactment  can  remove,  the  last  barrier  to  the  extension  of  Chris- 
tianity throughout  China,  In  Article  XIII  of  the  English  treaty 
with  China,  September  5,  1902,  Great  Britain  agreed  to  join 
in  a  commission  to  secure  peaceable  relationships  between  con- 
verts and  non-converts  in  China.  But  the  American  treaty 
goes  much  farther,  as  the  following  extract  (Article  XIV)  will 
show :  — 

"  The  principles  of  the  Christian  religion,  as  professed  by  the  Protestant 
and  Roman  Catholic  Churches,  are  recognized  as  teaching  men  to  do  good 
and  to  do  to  others  as  they  would  have  others  do  to  them.  Those  who 
quietly  profess  and  teach  these  doctrines  shall  not  be  harassed  or  perse- 
cuted on  account  of  their  faith.  Any  person,  whether  citizen  of  the 
United  States  or  Chinese  convert,  who,  according  to  these  tenets,  peace- 
ably teaches  and  practices  the  principles  of  Christianity  shall  in  no  case 
be  interfered  with  or  molested  therefor.  No  restrictions  shall  be  placed 
on  Chinese  joining  Christian  churches.  Converts  and  non-converts,  be- 
ing Chinese  subjects,  shall  alike  conform  to  the  laws  of  China,  and  shall 
pay  due  respect  to  those  in  authority,  living  together  in  peace  and  amity ; 
and  the  fact  of  being  converts  shall  not  protect  them  from  the  consequences 
of  any  offense  they  may  have  committed  before  or  may  commit  after  their 
admission  into  the  church,  or  exempt  them  from  paying  legal  taxes  levied 
on  Chinese  subjects  generally,  except  taxes  levied  and  contributions  for 
the  support  of  religious  customs  and  practices  contrary  to  their  religion. 
Missionaries  shall  not  interfere  with  the  exercise  by  the  native  authorities 
of  their  jurisdiction  over  Chinese  subjects  ;  nor  shall  the  native  authorities 
make  any  distinction  between  converts  and  non-converts,  but  shall  admin- 
ister the  laws  without  partiality,  so  that  both  classes  can  live  together  in 
peace. 

"  Missionary  societies  of  the  United  States  shall  be  permitted  to  rent 
and  to  lease  in  perpetuity  as  the  property  of  such  societies,  buildings  or 
lands  in  all  parts  of  the  Empire  for  missionary  purposes  and,  after  the 
title-deeds  have  been  found  in  order  and  duly  stamped  by  the  local  author- 
ities, to  erect  such  suitable  buildings  as  may  be  required  for  carrying  on 
their  good  work." 


35'0  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

This  gives  new  prestige  to  American  missionary  effort  and 
legally  confirms  the  opening  of  the  Empire  from  end  to  end  to 
missionary  residence,  activity  and  toleration.  All  that  France 
harshly  obtained  for  Roman  Catholic  missions  by  the  Ber- 
themy  convention  of  1865  and  by  the  haughty  ultimatum  of  M. 
Gerard  at  the  close  of  the  war  with  Japan,  the  United  States 
has  now  peacefully  secured  with  the  apparent  good-will  of  the 
Chinese  Government. 


XXVIII 

THE  PARAMOUNT  DUTY  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

IT  would  be  unwise  to  underestimate  the  gravity  of  the 
situation,  or  to  assume  that  the  most  numerous  and  con- 
servative nation  on  the  globe  has  been  suddenly  trans- 
formed from  foreign  haters  to  foreign  lovers.  The  world  may 
again  have  occasion  to  realize  that  the  momentum  of  countless 
myriads  is  an  awful  force  even  against  the  resources  of  a 
higher  civilization,  as  the  Romans  found  to  their  consternation 
when  the  barbarian  hordes  overran  the  Empire.  We  do  not 
know  what  disturbances  may  yet  occur  or  what  proportions 
they  may  assume.  It  may  be  that  much  blood  will  yet  be 
shed.  Inflamed  passions  will  certainly  be  slow  in  subsiding. 
Men  who  are  identified  with  the  old  era  will  not  give  up  with- 
out a  struggle.  It  took  300  years  to  bring  England  from  pagan 
barbarism  to  Christian  civilization,  and  China  is  vaster  far 
and  more  conservative  than  England.  The  world  moves  faster 
now,  and  the  change-producing  forces  of  the  present  exceed 
those  of  former  centuries  as  a  inodern  steam  hammer  exceeds  a 
wooden  sledge.  But  China  is  ponderous,  and  a  few  decades 
are  short  for  so  gigantic  a  transformation. 

Meantime,  much  depends  on  the  future  conduct  of  foreigners. 
It  is  hard  enough  for  the  proud-spirited  Chinese  to  see  the 
aliens  coming  in  greater  numbers  than  ever  and  entrenching 
themselves  more  and  more  impregnably,  and  a  continuance  of 
the  policy  of  greed  and  injustice  will  deepen  an  already  deep 
resentment.  The  almost  invincible  prejudice  against  the  for- 
eigner is  a  serious  hindrance  to  the  regeneration  of  China. 
"  This  fact  emphasizes  the  need  for  using  every  means  possible 
for  the  breaking  down  of  such  a  prejudice.     Every  careless  or 

351 


352  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

willful  wound  to  Chinese  susceptibilities,  or  unnecessary  cross- 
ing of  Chinese  superstitions,  retards  our  own  work  and  in- 
creases the  dead  wall  of  opposition  on  the  part  of  this  people."  ' 

The  proper  way  to  deal  with  the  Chinese  was  illustrated  by 
the  Rev.  J.  Walter  Lowrie  of  the  Presbyterian  Mission  at 
Paoting-fu  when,  as  a  token  of  appreciation  for  his  services  to 
the  city  in  connection  with  the  retaliatory  measures  of  the 
foreign  troops  shortly  after  the  Boxer  outbreak,  the  magistrate 
raised  a  special  fund  among  wealthy  Chinese,  bought  a  fine 
tract  of  sixteen  acres  and  presented  it  to  the  mission  as  a  gift. 
The  tract  had  been  occupied  for  many  years  by  several 
families  of  tenants  who  had  built  their  own  houses,  but  who 
were  now  to  be  evicted.  Of  course,  Mr.  Lowrie  was  not 
responsible  for  them.  But  he  insisted  that  they  should  be 
dealt  with  fairly,  and  be  paid  a  reasonable  price  for  their  homes 
and  the  improvements  that  they  had  made  so  that  they  could 
rent  land  and  establish  themselves  elsewhere.  In  addition,  he 
was  at  pains  to  find  work  for  them  until  their  new  crops  be- 
came available.  Their  affectionate  greeting  of  Mr.  Lowrie  as 
we  walked  about  the  place  clearly  showed  their  gratification. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  trouble  with  the  Chinese  when  they 
are  treated  with  ordinary  decency  as  brother  men. 

At  any  rate,  in  the  name  of  that  civilization  and  Christianity 
which  we  profess,  as  well  of  common  humanity,  let  foreign 
nations  abandon  the  methods  of  brutality  and  rapine.  If  we 
expect  to  convert  the  Chinese,  we  mustexemplify  the  principles 
we  teach.  It  is  not  true  that  the  Chinese  cannot  understand 
justice  and  magnanimity.  Even  if  it  were  true,  it  does  not 
follow  that  we  should  be  unjust  and  pitiless.  Let  us  instruct 
them  in  the  higher  things.  How  are  they  ever  to  learn,  if  we 
do  not  teach  them  ?  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Chinese  are 
as  amenable  to  reason  as  any  people  in  the  world.  Their 
temperament  and  inertia  and  long  isolation  from  the  remainder 
of  mankind  have  made  them  slow  to  grasp  a  new  idea.  But 
'  The  Rev.  Dr.  J.  C.  Garritt,  Hang-how. 


The   Paramount  Duty  of  Christendom     353 

they  will  get  it  if  they  are  given  reasonable  time,  and  when 
they  do  once  get  it,  they  will  hold  it.  Whether,  therefore, 
further  trouble  occurs,  depends  in  part  upon  the  conduct  of 
foreign  nations.  Justice  and  humanity  in  all  dealings  with  the 
Chinese,  while  not  perhaps  wholly  preventing  outbreaks  of 
hostility,  will  at  least  give  less  occasion  for  them. 

But  however  trying  the  period  of  transition  may  be,  the  issue  is 
not  for  a  moment  doubtful.  Progress  invariably  wins  the  victory 
over  blind  conservatism.  The  higher  idea  is  sure  to  conquer 
the  lower.  With  all  their  admixture  of  selfishness  and 
violence,  the  fact  remains  that  the  forces  operating  on  China 
to-day  include  the  vital  regenerative  element  for  human 
society.  It  is  futile  to  expect  that  China  could  ever  regener- 
ate herself  without  outside  aid.  Spontaneous  regeneration  is 
an  exploded  theory  in  society  as  well  as  in  biology.  Life  al- 
ways comes  from  without. 

The  spirit  of  China's  new  system  of  education  shows  that 
there  is  imminent  danger  of  the  misuse  of  modern  methods, 
even  when  they  have  been  adopted.  All  her  institutions  are 
conducted  on  principles  which  virtually  debar  Christians 
either  as  students  or  professors.  Infidelity,  however,  has  free 
entrance  as  long  as  it  conforms  to  the  external  forms  imposed 
by  the  State.  "Anti-conservative  but  anti-Christian,"  the 
educational  movement  has  been  characterized  by  Dr.  W.  M. 
Hayes  of  Teng-chou.  Dr.  W.  A.  P.  Martin,  so  long  Presi- 
dent of  the  Imperial  Chinese  University,  declares  that  "if 
Christians  at  home  only  knew  what  a  determined  effort  is  being 
made  to  exclude  Christian  teachers  and  Christian  text-books 
from  Chinese  Government  schools,  from  the  Imperial  Uni- 
versity down,  they  would  exert  themselves  to  give  a  Christian 
education  to  the  youth  of  China."     A  single  mission  insti-  ^1^1^^ 

tution,  like  the  Shangtung  Protestant  University,  with  its 
union  of  the  best  educational  methods  and  the  highest  ideals 
of  Christian  character,  will  do  more  for  the  real  enlightenment 
of  China  than  a  dozen  provincial  colleges  where  gambling, 


354  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

irreligion  and  opium  smoking  are  freely  tolerated  and  a  failure 
to  worship  the  tablet  of  Confucius  is  deemed  the  only 
cardinal  sin. 

In  view  of  all  these  things,  the  regeneration  of  China  becomes 
a  question  of  transcendent  importance,  a  question  demanding 
the  broadest  statesmanship  and  the  supreniest  effort ;  a  question 
involving  the  future  destinies  of  the  race.  "  On  account  of  its 
mass,  its  homogeneity,  its  high  intellectual  and  moral  qualities, 
its  past  history,  its  present  and  prospective  relations  to  the 
whole  world,  the  conversion  of  the  Chinese  people  to  Christi- 
anity is  the  most  important  aggressive  enterprise  now  laid  upon 
the  Church  of  Christ."  '  It  would  be  a  calamity  to  the  whole 
world  if  the  dominant  powers  of  Asia  should  continue  to  be 
heathen.  But  if  they  are  not  to  be,  immediate  and  herculean 
efforts  must  be  made  to  regenerate  them.  Sir  Robert  Hart 
declares  that  the  only  hope  of  averting  "  the  yellow  peril  "  lies 
either  in  partition  among  the  great  Powers,  which  he  regards  as 
so  difficult  as  to  be  impracticable,  or  in  a  miraculous  spread  of 
Christianity  which  will  transform  the  Empire.  Beyond 
question.  Sir  Robert  Hart  is  right.  It  is  too  late  now  to  avoid 
the  issue.  The  impact  of  new  forces  is  rousing  this  gigantic 
nation,  and  Western  nations  must  either  conquer  or  convert. 
Conquering  is  out  of  the  question  for  reasons  already  given.* 
The  only  alternative  is  conversion.  In  these  circumstances 
*'  the  yellow  peril  becomes  the  golden  opportunity  of  Christen- 
dom." ' 

And  by  conversion  is  not  meant  "civilization."  Here  is 
the  fundamental  error  of  the  anonymous  writer  of  "  Letters  of  a 
Chinese  Official."  He  evidently  knows  Httle  or  nothing  of  the 
missionary  force  or  of  the  motives  which  control  it.  He  writes 
as  a  man  who  has  lived  in  a  commercial  and  political  atmos- 
phere, and  who  feels  outraged,  and  with  some  justice,  by  the 

•  Smith,  "  Rex  Christus,"  p.  237. 

2  Chapter  XXV. 

3  The  Rev,  Dr.  Maltbie  D.  Babcock. 


The   Paramount  Duty  of  Christendom     355 

policy  which  European  nations  have  adopted  towards 
China.  From  this  view-point,  it  was  easy  for  the  quick- 
witted author  to  satirize  our  defects  and  to  laud  the  virtues, 
some  of  them  unquestionably  real,  of  his  native  land.  But  it 
does  not  follow  that  his  indictment  holds  against  the  Christian 
people  of  the  West,  who  reprobate  as  strongly  as  the  author 
the  duplicity  and  brutality  of  foreign  nations  in  their  dealings 
with  China.  The  West  has  something  more  to  offer  China 
than  a  civilization.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  best  people  of  the 
West  are  not  trying  to  give  China  a  civilization  at  all,  but  a 
gospel.  With  whatever  is  good  in  Chinese  civilization,  they 
have  no  wish  to  interfere.  It  is  true  that  some  changes  in 
society  invariably  follow  the  acceptance  of  Christianity,  but 
these  changes  relate  only  to  those  things  that  are  always  and 
everywhere  inherently  wrong,  irrespective  of  the  civilization  to 
which  they  appear  to  belong.  The  gospel  transformed  "the 
Five  Points  "  in  New  York  not  because  they  were  uncivilized 
but  because  they  were  evil.  It  will  do  in  China  only  what  it 
does  in  America — fight  vice,  cleanse  foulness,  dispel  supersti- 
tion. Christianity  is  the  only  power  which  does  this.  It  has 
transformed  every  people  among  whom  it  has  had  free  course. 
It  has  purified  society.  It  has  promoted  intelligence.  It  has 
elevated  woman.  It  has  fitted  for  wise  and  beneficent  use  of 
power.     Lowell  challenged  sceptics  to  find 

"  a  place  on  this  planet  ten  miles  square,  where  a  decent  man  can  live  in 
decency,  comfort  and  security,  supporting  and  educating  his  children,  un- 
spoiled and  unpolluted ;  a  place  where  age  is  reverenced,  infancy  re- 
spected, manhood  respected,  womanhood  honoured,  and  human  life  held  in 
due  regard  .  .  ,  where  the  Gospel  of  Christ  has  not  gone  and  cleared 
the  way,  and  laid  the  foundation  and  made  decency  and  security  possible," 

No  degradation  is  beyond  the  reach  of  its  regenerating  power. 
Witness  the  New  Hebrides,  Metlakatla,  the  Fiji,  Georgia  and 
Friendly  Islands.  Even  England,  Germany  and  America 
themselves  are  in  evidence.     Christianity  lifted  them  out  of  a 


35^  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

barbarism  and  superstition  as  dense  as  any  prevailing  among 
the  heathen  nations  of  this  age.  It  can  effect  like  changes  in 
China  if  it  is  given  the  opportunity. 

But  it  is  said  that  the  Chinese  do  not  want  to  be  converted. 
A  distinguished  General  of  the  United  States  army  declared, 
after  his  return  from  Peking  in  1900  : — "  I  must  say  that  I  did 
not  meet  a  single  intelligent  Chinaman  who  expressed  a  desire 
to  embrace  the  Christian  religion.  The  masses  are  against 
Christianity."  '  It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  it  is  so  common 
for  unconverted  Americans  to  go  to  that  army  officer  for 
spiritual  guidance  that  the  failure  of  the  Chinese  to  do  so  dis- 
appointed him.  Most  men  would  hardly  have  expected  a 
people  who  were  smarting  under  defeat  to  open  their  hearts  to 
a  commander  of  the  conquering  army.  But  hundreds  of  other 
foreigners  in  China,  myself  included,  can  testify  that  they  have 
heard  intelligent  Chinese  express  a  desire  to  embrace  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  and  the  fact  that  there  are  in  China  to-day  over  a 
hundred  thousand  Chinese,  to  say  nothing  of  myriads  of  en- 
rolled catechumens,  who  have  publicly  confessed  their  faith  in 
Christ  and  who  have  tenaciously  adhered  to  it  under  sore  per- 
secution is  tangible  evidence  that  some  Chinese  at  least  are  dis- 
posed to  accept  Christianity. 

Do  they  want  Him  ?  "It  would  please  you,"  a  missionary 
writes,  "to  see  these  poor  people  feeling  after  God,  and  their 
eagerness  to  learn  more  and  more."  It  is  not  uncommon  for 
converts  to  travel  ten,  fifteen  and  even  twenty  miles  to  attend 
service.  The  Sunday  I  was  in  Ichou-fu,  I  met  a  fine-looking 
young  man,  named  Yao  Chao  Feng,  who  had  walked  sixteen 
miles  to  receive  Christian  baptism,  and  several  other  Chinese 
were  present  who  had  journeyed  on  foot  from  seventeen  to 
thirty-three  miles.  In  Paoting-fu,  I  heard  of  a  mother  and 
daughter  who  had  painfully  hobbled  on  bound  feet  thirteen 
miles  that  they  might  learn  more  about  the  new  faith.  In 
another  city,  800  opium-smokers  kneeled  in  a  church  and 
•  The  Christian  Advocate,  New  York,  June  II,  1903. 


The  Paramount  Duty  of  Christendom     357 

asked  God  to  help  them  break  the  chains  of  that  frightful 
habit.  Surely  He  who  puts  His  fatherly  arms  around  the 
prodigal  and  kissed  him  was  in  that  humble  church  and  an- 
swered the  prayer  of  those  poor,  sin- cursed  men.  It  would 
be  easy  to  fill  a  book  with  such  instances. 

But  suppose  the  Chinese  do  not  want  Christ.  What  of  it? 
Did  they  want  the  distinguished  General  ?  On  the  contrary,  he 
had  to  fight  his  way  into  Peking  at  the  mouth  of  the  cannon 
and  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  over  the  dead  bodies  of  Chinese 
and  through  the  ruins  of  Chinese  towns.  Do  "the  masses" 
desire  Christ  anywhere?  Mr.  Moody  used  to  say  that  the 
people  of  the  United  States  did  not  want  Christ  and  would 
probably  reject  Him  if  He  came  to  them  as  He  came  to  the 
Jews  of  old. 

The  question  is  not  at  all  whether  the  Chinese  or  anybody 
else  desire  Christ,  but  whether  they  need  Him,  and  a  man's 
answer  to  that  question  largely  depends  upon  his  own  relations 
to  Christ.  If  we  need  Him,  the  Chinese  do.  If  He  has  done 
anything  for  us,  if  He  has  brought  any  dignity  and  power  and 
peace  into  our  lives,  the  probabilities  are  that  He  can  do  as 
much  for  the  Chinese. 

"  Be  assured  that  the  Christ  who  cannot  save  a  Chinaman  in  longitude 
I17O  East  is  a  Christ  who  cannot  save  you  in  longitude  3O  West.  The 
question  about  missions  would  not  be  so  lightly  put,  nor  the  answer  so 
lightly  listened  to,  if  men  realized  that  what  is  at  stake  is  not  a  mere 
scheme  of  us  missionaries,  but  the  validity  of  their  own  hope  of  eternal 
life.  Yet  I  am  bound  to  say  that  the  questions  put  to  me,  on  returning 
from  the  mission  field,  by  professedly  Christian  people  often  shake  my 
faith,  not  in  missions,  but  in  their  Christian  profession.  What  kind  of 
grasp  of  the  gospel  have  men  got,  who  doubt  whether  it  is  to-day,  under 
any  skies,  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  ?  "  ' 

It  passes  comprehension  that  any  one  who  has  even  a  super- 
ficial knowledge  of  the  real  China  can  doubt  for  a  moment  its 
vital  need  of  the  gospel.     The  wretchedness  of  its  life  appalls  an 

'  Gibson,  pp.  11,  12. 


358  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

American  who  goes  back  into  the  unmodified  conditions  of  the 
interior  or  even  into  the  old  Chinese  city  of  proud  Shanghai. 
As  I  journeyed  through  those  vast  throngs,  climbed  many  hill- 
tops and  looked  out  upon  the  innumerable  villages,  which 
thickly  dotted  the  plain  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  as  I  saw 
the  unrelieved  pain  and  the  crushing  poverty  and  the  abject 
fear  of  evil  spirits,  I  felt  that  in  China  is  seen  in  literal  truth 
"  The  Man  with  the  Hoe." 

"  Bowed  by  the  weight  of  centuries,  he  leans 
Upon  his  hoe  and  gazes  on  the  ground, 
The  emptiness  of  ages  in  his  face, 
And  on  his  back  the  burden  of  the  world. 

"  What  gulfs  between  him  and  the  seraphim, 
Slave  of  the  wheel  of  labour,  what  to  him 
Are  Plato  and  the  swing  of  Pleiades  ? 
What  the  long  reaches  of  the  peaks  of  song. 
The  rift  of  dawn,  the  reddening  of  the  rose  ? 
Through  this  dread  shape  the  suffering  ages  look; 
Time's  tragedy  is  in  that  aching  stoop." 

This  is  the  need  to  which  the  churches  of  Europe  and 
America  are  addressing  themselves  through  the  boards  and 
societies  of  foreign  missions.  These  boards  are  the  channels 
through  which  the  highest  type  of  Christian  civilization  is  com- 
municated to  pagan  peoples,  the  agencies  which  gather  up  all 
that  is  best  and  truest  in  our  modern  life  and  concentrate  it 
upon  the  conditions  of  China.  From  this  view-point,  foreign 
missions  is  not  only  a  question  of  religion,  but  a  problem  of 
statesmanship,  and  one  of  overshadowing  magnitude.  As 
such,  it  merits  the  sympathy  and  cooperation  of  every  intelli- 
gent and  broad-minded  man,  irrespective  of  his  religious  affilia- 
tions. Its  spiritual  aims  are  supreme  and  sufficient  for  every 
true  disciple  of  Christ,  but  apart  from  them  its  social  and  educa- 
tional value  and  its  relation  to  the  welfare  of  the  race  justly 


The  Paramount  Duty  of  Christendom     359 

claim  the  interest  and  support  of  all.  In  this  work  the  Church 
is  saving  both  individuals  and  nations,  and  for  time  as  well  as 
for  eternity.  It  holds  no  pessimistic  views  of  the  future.  It 
denies  that  the  development  of  the  race  has  ended.  It  frankly 
concedes  the  existence  of  vice  and  superstition.  But  it  be- 
lieves that  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  able  to  subdue  that 
vice,  and  to  dispel  that  superstition.  So  it  founds  schools  and 
colleges  for  the  education  of  the  young ;  establishes  hospitals 
and  dispensaries  for  the  care  of  the  sick  and  suffering  ;  operates 
printing-presses  for  the  dissemination  of  the  Bible  and  a  Chris- 
tian literature ;  maintains  churches  for  the  worship  of  the  true 
God,  and  in  and  through  all  it  preaches  to  lost  men  the  trans- 
forming and  uphfting  gospel  of  Him  who  alone  can  "speak 
peace  to  the  heathen." 

But  some  are  saying  that  the  Boxer  outbreak  has  destroyed 
their  confidence  in  the  practicability  of  the  effort  to  evangelize 
the  Chinese.  They  are  asking  :  "Why  should  we  send  any 
more  missionaries  to  China  ?  ' ' 

I  reply:  "  Why  send  anymore  merchants,  anymore  con- 
suls, any  more  oil,  flour,  cotton  ?  Shall  we  continue  our  com- 
mercial and  political  relations  with  China  and  discontinue  our 
religious  relations ;  allow  the  lower  influences  to  flow  on  un- 
checked, but  withhold  the  spiritual  forces  which  would  purify 
trade  and  politics,  which  have  made  us  what  we  are,  and  which 
alone  can  regenerate  the  millions  of  China?" 

Is  disaster  a  reason  for  withdrawal  ?  When  the  American 
colonists  found  themselves  involved  in  the  horrors  of  the  Revo- 
lution, did  they  say  that  it  would  have  been  better  to  re- 
main the  subjects  of  Great  Britain  ?  When,  a  generation  ago, 
our  land  was  drenched  with  the  blood  of  the  Civil  War,  did 
men  think  that  they  ought  to  have  tolerated  secession  and 
slavery  ?  When  the  Maine  was  blown  up  in  Havana  Harbour 
and  Lawton  was  killed  in  Luzon,  did  we  demand  withdrawal 
from  Cuba  and  the  Philippines?  When  Liscum  fell  under  the 
walls  of  Tien-tsin,  did  we  insist  that  the  attempt  to  relieve  the 


360  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

Legations  should  be  abandoned  ?  Or  did  not  the  American 
people,  in  every  one  of  these  instances,  find  in  the  very  agonies 
of  struggle  and  bloodshed  a  decisive  reason  for  advance?  Did 
they  not  sternly  resolve  that  there  should  be  men,  that  there 
should  be  money,  and  that  the  war  should  be  pressed  to  victory 
whatever  the  sacrifice  that  might  be  involved  ? 

And  shall  the  Church  of  God  weakly,  timidly  yield  because 
the  very  troubles  have  occurred  which  Christ  Himself  pre- 
dicted? He  frankly  said  that  there  should  "be  wars  and 
rumors  of  wars"  ;  that  His  disciples  should  "be  hated  of  all 
men";  that  He  sent  them  "forth  as  sheep  in  the  midst  of 
wolves,"  and  that  the  brother  should  "  deliver  up  the  brother 
to  death  and  the  father  the  child."  But  in  that  very  discourse 
He  also  said  :  "  He  that  taketh  not  his  cross  and  foUoweth 
after  me  is  not  worthy  of  me."  "Go,  preach,"  He  commanded. 
"  Woe  is  me  if  I  preach  not,"  cried  Paul.  Hostile  rulers  and 
priests  and  mobs  and  the  bitter  Cross  did  not  swerve  Him  a 
hairbreadth  from  His  purpose  ;  nor  did  the  rending  of  the  early 
disciples  in  the  arenas  of  Nero,  the  burning  of  a  Huss  and  a 
Savonarola,  the  pyres  of  Smithfield,  the  dungeons  of  the 
Tolbooth  and  the  thumb-screws  of  the  Inquisition  quench  the 
zeal  of  His  followers. 

And  in  the  like  manner,  the  ashes  of  mission  buildings  and 
the  blood  of  devoted  missionaries  and  the  tumult  of  furious 
men  have  led  multitudes  at  home  to  form  a  high  and  holy  re- 
solve to  send  more  missionaries,  to  give  more  money  and  to 
press  the  whole  majestic  enterprise  with  new  faith  and  power 
until  all  China  has  been  electrified  by  the  vital  spiritual  force 
of  a  nobler  faith.  God  summons  Christendom  to  a  forward 
movement  in  the  land  whose  soil  has  been  forever  consecrated 
by  the  martyrdom  of  the  beloved  dead.  Instead  of  retreating, 
"we  should,"  in  the  immortal  words  of  Lincoln  at  Gettysburg, 
"  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us;  that 
from  these  honoured  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that 
cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion ; 


The  Paramount  Duty  of  Christendom     361 

that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died 
in  vain." 

It  may  be  said  that  this  is  a  purely  sentimental  consideration. 
But  so  may  love  for  country,  for  liberty,  for  wife  and  children, 
be  called  a  sentiment.  God  forbid  that  the  time  should  ever 
come  when  men  will  not  be  influenced  by  sentiment.  The  intui- 
tions of  the  heart  are  as  apt  to  be  correct  as  the  dictates  of  the 
head.  I  candidly  admit  that  as  I  stood  amid  the  ruins  of  the 
mission  buildings  in  China,  as  I  faced  the  surviving  Christians 
and  remembered  what  they  had  suffered,  the  property  they  had 
lost  and  the  dear  ones  they  had  seen  murdered, — as  I  stood  with 
bared  head  on  the  spot  where  devoted  missionaries  had  per- 
ished, I  was  conscious  of  a  deeper  consecration  to  the  task  of 
uplifting  China.  And  I  am  not  willing  to  admit  that  such  a 
dedication  of  the  living  to  the  continuance  of  the  work  of  the 
dead  is  a  mere  sentiment. 

We  are  not  wise  above  what  is  written  when  we  declare  that 
the  eternal  purpose  of  God  comprehends  China  as  well  as 
Europe  and  America.  He  did  not  create  those  hundreds  of 
millions  of  human  beings  simply  to  fertilize  the  soil  in  which 
their  bodies  will  decay.  He  has  not  preserved  China  as  a  na- 
tion for  nearly  half  a  hundred  centuries  for  nothing.  Out  of 
the  apparent  wreck,  the  new  dispensation  will  come,  is  already 
coming.  Frightened  men  thought  that  the  fall  of  Rome  meant 
the  end  of  the  world,  but  we  can  see  that  it  only  cleared  the 
way  for  a  better  world.  Pessimists  feared  that  the  violence  and 
blood  of  the  Crusades  would  ruin  Europe,  but  instead  they 
broke  up  the  stagnation  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  made  possible 
the  rise  of  modern  Europe.  The  faint-hearted  said  that  the 
India  mutiny  of  1857  and  the  Syria  massacres  of  i860  ended 
all  hope  of  regenerating  those  countries,  but  in  both  they  ushered 
in  the  most  successful  era  of  missions. 

So  the  barriers  which  have  separated  China  from  the  rest  of 
the  world  must,  like  the  medieval  wall  of  Tien-tsin,  be  cast  down 
and  over  them  a  highway  for  all  men  be  made.     No  one  sup- 


362  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

posed  that  the  process  would  be  so  sudden  and  violent.  But 
in  the  Boxer  uprising  the  hammer  of  God  did  in  months  what 
would  otherwise  have  taken  weary  generations.  Some  were 
discouraged  because  the  air  was  filled  with  the  deafening  tu- 
mult and  the  blinding  dust  and  the  flying  debris.  Many  lost 
heart  and  wanted  to  sound  a  retreat  because  some  of  God's 
chosen  ones  were  crushed  in  the  awful  rending.  But  the  wiser 
and  more  far-seeing  heard  a  new  call  to  utilize  the  larger  op- 
portunity which  resulted.  Up  to  this  time  we  have  been  play- 
ing with  foreign  missions.  It  is  now  time  for  Christendom 
to  understand  that  its  great  work  in  the  twentieth  century  is  to 
plan  this  movement  on  a  scale  gigantic  in  comparison  with 
anything  it  has  yet  done,  and  to  grapple  intelligently,  gen- 
erously and  resolutely,  with  the  stupendous  task  of  Christianiz- 
ing China, 

But  we  are  sometimes  told  that  the  churches  should  not  be 
allowed  to  go  on ;  that  one  of  the  conditions  of  good  feeling 
will  be  the  exclusion  of  missionaries  from  China.  On  this 
point,  I  venture  three  suggestions  : — 

First, — No  administration  that  can  ever  be  elected  in  the 
United  States  will  thus  interfere  with  the  liberty  of  the 
churches.  It  will  never  say,  in  effect,  that  arms'  manufacturing 
companies  can  send  agents  to  Peking  and  distilleries  send 
drummers  to  Shanghai,  but  that  the  Church  of  God  cannot 
send  devoted,  intelligent  men  and  women  to  found  schools  and 
hospitals  and  printing-presses  and  to  preach  the  gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  will  never  say  that  American  gamblers  in 
Tien-tsin  and  American  prostitutes  in  Hongkong  shall  be  pro- 
tected by  all  the  might  of  the  American  army  and  navy,  but 
that  the  pure,  high-minded  missionary,  who  represents  the 
noblest  motives  and  ideals  of  our  American  life,  shall  be  ex- 
patriated, a  man  without  a  country. 

This  is,  however,  a  problem  for  the  nation,  rather  than  for 
the  boards.  The  American  missionary  went  to  Asia  before  his 
Government  did,  and  until  recently  he  saw  very  little  of  the 


The  Paramount  Duty  of  Christendom     363 

American  flag.  European  nations  have  protected  their  citizens, 
whether  they  were  missionaries  or  traders.  In  the  United 
States  Senate  Mr.  Frye  once  reminded  the  nation  that  about 
twenty  years  ago  England  sent  an  army  of  15,000  men  down 
to  the  African  coast,  across  700  miles  of  burning  sand,  to  bat- 
ter down  iron  gates  and  stone  walls,  reach  down  into  an 
Abyssinian  dungeon  and  lift  out  of  it  one  British  subject  who 
had  been  unlawfully  imprisoned.  It  cost  England  ^25,000,000 
to  do  it,  but  it  made  a  highway  over  this  planet  for  every  com- 
mon son  of  Britain,  and  the  words,  "  I  am  an  EngHsh  citizen," 
more  potent  than  the  sceptre  of  a  king.  And  because  of  that 
reputation  American  missionaries  have  more  than  once  been 
saved  by  the  intervention  of  British  ministers  and  consuls  who 
have  not  forgotten  that  "blood  is  thicker  than  water."  Shall 
we  vociferously  curse  England  one  day  and  the  next  supinely 
depend  upon  her  representatives  to  help  us  out  when  our  citi- 
zens are  endangered  ? 

This  is  not  a  question  of  ''jingoism,"  whatever  that  may  be. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  making  unreasonable  complaints  to  home 
governments.  It  is  not  a  question  of  religion  or  of  missions. 
It  is  a  question  of  treaties,  of  citizenship,  of  national  honour 
and  of  self-respect.  Let  the  nation  settle  it  from  that  view- 
point. The  missionary  asks  no  special  privileges.  He  can 
stand  it  to  go  on  as  before,  if  the  nation  can  stand  it  to  have 
him. 

Second, — If  China  should  ever  make  such  a  demand  in 
repudiation  of  the  treaties  which  she  herself  has  expressly  ac- 
knowledged to  be  valid,  and  if  all  the  Powers  should  support 
her  in  that  demand,  does  anybody  doubt  what  the  missionary 
would  say  ?  We  know  at  any  rate  what  he  has  said  in  similar 
circumstances.  When  Peter  and  John  were  scourged  and  forbid- 
den to  preach  any  more  in  the  name  of  Jesus,  friendless  and  pen- 
niless though  they  were,  they  ringingly  answered  :  "  Whether 
it  be  right  in  the  sight  of  God  to  hearken  unto  you  more  than 
unto  God,  judge  ye.      For  we  cannot  but  speak  the  things 


364  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

which  we  have  seen  and  heard."  When  Martin  Luther  was 
arraigned  before  the  most  powerful  tribunal  in  Europe,  he  de- 
clared :  "  Here  I  stand.  God  help  me.  I  can  do  no  other." 
When  the  Russian  Minister  in  Constantinople  haughtily  said  to 
Dr.  Hamlin,  "  My  master,  the  Czar  of  all  the  Russias,  will 
not  let  you  put  foot  on  that  territory," — the  intrepid  mission- 
ary replied  :  "My  Master,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  will  never 
ask  the  Czar  of  all  the  Russias  where  He  shall  put  His  foot." 
Scores  of  missionaries  have  not  hesitated  to  say  to  hostile 
authorities  :  "I  did  not  receive  my  commission  from  any  earthly 
potentate  but  from  the  King  of  Kings,  and  I  shall,  I  must  go 
on." 

Some  will  say  that  this  is  madness.  So  of  old  men  said  of 
Christ,  "He  hath  a  demon";  so  they  said  of  Paul,  "Thou 
art  beside  thyself."  If  magnificent  moral  courage  and 
unyielding  devotion  to  duty  are  "madness,"  then  the  more  the 
world  has  of  it  the  better. 

The  effort  to  minimize  the  significance  of  the  missionary 
force  in  China  will  be  made  only  by  those  who,  destitute  of  any 
vital  religious  faith  themselves,  of  course  see  no  reason  for 
communicating  it  to  others,  or  by  those  who  are  strangely  blind 
and  deaf  to  the  real  issues  of  the  age.  In  the  words  of  Ben- 
jamin Kidd,  "it  is  not  improbable  that,  to  a  future  observer, 
one  of  the  most  curious  features  of  our  time  will  appear  to  be 
the  prevailing  unconsciousness  of  the  real  nature  of  the  issues 
in  the  midst  of  which  we  are  living." 

"  No  more  did  the  statesmen  and  the  philosophers  of  Rome  understand 
the  character  and  issues  of  that  greatest  movement  of  all  history,  of  which 
their  literature  takes  so  little  notice.  That  the  greatest  religious  change 
in  the  history  of  mankind  should  have  taken  place  under  the  eyes  of  a 
brilliant  galaxy  of  philosophers  and  historians  who  were  profoundly  con- 
scious of  decomposition  around  them  ;  that  all  these  writers  should  have 
utterly  failed  to  predict  the  issue  of  the  movement  they  were  then  observ- 
ing ;  and  that  during  the  space  of  three  centuries  they  should  have  treated 
as  simply  contemptible  an  agency  which  all  men  must  now  admit  to  have 


The  Paramount  Duty  of  Christendom     365 

been,  for  good  or  evil,  the  most  powerful  moral  lever  that  has  ever  been 
applied  to  the  affairs  of  men,  are  facts  well  worthy  of  meditation  in  every 
period  of  religious  transition."  ' 

Does  any  sane  man  imagine  that  the  Church  could  cease  to 
be  missionary  and  remain  a  Church  ?  It  has  been  well  said 
that  the  Christian  nations  might  as  well  face  the  utter  futility 
of  any  hypothesis  based  upon  the  supposition  that  they  can 
remain  away  from  the  Orient.  The  occurrences  of  recent  years 
have  made  changes  in  their  relation  to  the  world  which  they  can 
no  more  recall  than  they  can  alter  the  course  of  a  planet.  It  is 
idle  for  doctrinaires  to  tell  us  from  the  quiet  comfort  of  home 
libraries,  that  we  should  "keep  hands  off."  We  can  no  more 
keep  hands  off  than  our  country  could  keep  hands  off  slavery 
in  the  South,  no  more  than  New  York  could  keep  hands  off  a 
borough  infected  with  smallpox.  The  world  has  passed  the 
point  where  one-third  of  its  population  can  be  allowed  to  breed 
miasma  which  the  other  two-thirds  must  breathe.  Both  for 
China's  sake  and  for  our  own,  we  must  continue  this  work.  If 
this  is  true  in  the  political  and  coinmercial  realms,  much  more 
is  it  true  in  the  religious.  Chalmer's  notable  sermon  on  the 
"Expulsive  Power  of  a  New  Affection"  enunciates  a  perma- 
n^M  principle.  When  a  man's  soul  is  once  thrilled  with  the 
conviction  that  he  has  found  God,  he  must  declare  that  sub- 
lime truth, 

"  To  doubt  would  be  disloyalty, 
To  falter  would  be  sin." 

I  confess  to  a  feeling  of  impatience  when  I  am  told  that  all 
missionary  plans  for  China  must  be  contingent  "upon  the 
settlement  of  political  negotiations,"  "the  overthrow  of  the 
Empress  Dowager  and  her  reactionary  advisers,"  "the  reestab- 
lishment  of  the  Emperor  on  his  rightful  throne,"  "the  con- 
tinuance in  power  of  Viceroy  Yuan  Shih  Kai,"  "the  mainte- 

•  Lecky,  "  History  of  European  Morals,"  Vol.  I,  p.  359, 


366  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

nance  of  a  strong  foreign  military  and  naval  force  in  China," 
"the  thwarting  of  Russia's  plans  for  supremacy,"  and  several 
other  events. 

All  these  things  have  been  said  and  more.  Is  the  Church 
then  despairingly  to  resign  her  commission  from  Jesus  Christ 
and  humbly  ask  a  new  one  from  Caesar?  Not  so  did  the 
apostolic  missionaries,  and  not  so,  I  am  persuaded,  will  their 
modern  successors  do.  They  cannot,  indeed,  be  indifferent  to 
the  course  of  political  events  or  to  their  bearing  upon  the 
missionary  problem.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  cannot 
make  their  obedience  to  Christ  and  their  duty  to  their  fellow  men 
dependent  upon  political  considerations.  For  Christian  men 
to  wait  until  China  is  pacified  by  the  Powers,  or  "  until  she  is 
enlightened  by  the  dissemination  of  truer  conceptions  of  the 
Western  world,"  would  be  to  abdicate  their  responsibility  as 
the  chief  factor  in  bringing  about  a  better  state  of  affairs.  Is 
the  Church  prepared  to  abandon  the  field  to  the  diplomat,  the 
soldier,  the  trader  ?  How  soon  is  China  likely  to  be  pacified 
by  them,  judging  from  their  past  acts  ?  The  gospel  is  the 
primary  need  of  China  to-day,  not  the  tertiary.  The  period 
of  unrest  is  not  the  time  for  the  messenger  of  Christ  to  hold 
his  peace,  but  to  declare  with  new  zeal  and  fidelity  his  ministry 
of  reconciliation.  To  leave  the  field  to  the  politician,  the 
soldier  and  the  trader  would  be  to  dishonour  Christ,  to  fail  to 
utilize  an  unprecedented  opportunity,  to  abandon  the  Chinese 
Christians  in  their  hour  of  special  need  and  to  prejudice  mis- 
sionary influence  at  home  and  abroad  for  a  generation. 

But  the  numbers  at  work  are  painfully  inadequate.  To  say 
that  there  are  2,950  Protestant  foreign  missionaries  in  China  is 
apt  to  give  a  distorted  idea  of  the  real  situation  unless  one 
remembers  the  immensity  of  the  population.  A  station  is  con- 
sidered well-manned  when  it  has  four  families  and  a  couple 
of  single  women.  But  what  are  they  among  those  swarming 
myriads?  The  proportion  of  Protestant  missionaries  to  the 
population,  which  is  commonly  quoted,  needs  revision.     There 


The  Paramount  Duty  of  Christendom     367 

is  one  to  about  every  144,000  souls.  But  that,  too,  requires 
modification,  for  it  counts  the  sick,  the  aged,  recruits  who  are 
learning  the  language,  wives  whose  time  is  absorbed  by  house- 
hold cares,  and  those  who  are  absent  on  furloughs,  the  last 
class  alone  being  often  about  ten  per  cent,  of  the  total  enroll- 
ment. The  actual  working  force,  therefore,  is  far  smaller  than 
the  statistics  suggest. 

Of  China  as  a  whole,  it  is  said  that  "some  of  the  mission- 
aries and  some  of  the  converts  are  to  be  found  in  every  one  of 
the  provinces,  both  of  China  and  Manchuria.  But  in  the 
1,900  odd  counties  into  which  the  provinces  are  divided,  each 
with  one  important  town  and  a  large  part  of  them  with  more 
than  one,  there  are  but  some  400  stations.  That  is  to  say,  at 
least  four-fifths  of  the  counties  of  China  are  almost  entirely 
unprovided  with  the  means  of  hearing  the  gospel."  '  Of  1,776 
walled  cities  in  the  Empire,  less  than  300  are  occupied  by  mis- 
sionaries. There  are  literally  tens  of  thousands  of  communities 
that  have  not  yet  been  touched  by  the  gospel.  Plainly,  the 
missionary  force  must  be  largely  augmented  if  the  work  is  to 
le  adequately  done.  The  home  churches  have  gone  too  far  to 
stop  without  going  farther.  "  Those  who  undertake  to  carry 
on  mission  work  among  great  peoples  undertake  great  responsi- 
bilities. We  have  no  right  to  penetrate  these  nations  with  a 
revolutionary  gospel  of  enormous  power,  unless  we  are  prepared 
to  make  every  sacrifice  and  every  effort  for  the  proper  care  and 
the  wise  training  of  the  organization  of  the  Christian  com- 
munity itself  which,  while  it  must  become  increasingly  a  source 
of  revolutionary  thought  and  movement,  is  also  the  only  body 
that  can  by  the  help  and  grace  of  God  give  these  far-reaching 
movements  a  healthy  direction  and  lead  them  to  safe  and  happy 
issues."  * 

Grant  that  the  work  of  evangelization  must  be  chiefly  done 
by  Chinese  preachers ;  there  is  still  much  for  the  missionary  to 

'  "  China's  Call  for  a  Three  Years'  Enterprise,"  1903. 
'  Gibson,  p.  277. 


368  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

do.  Allowing  for  those  who,  on  account  of  illness,  furlough  or 
other  duties,  are  temporarily  non-effective,  10,000  missionaries 
for  China  would  not  give  a  working  average  of  one  for  every 
50,000  of  the  population.  In  these  circumstances,  the  union 
conference  of  missionaries  at  Kuling,  August  7,  1903,  was 
surely  within  reasonable  bounds  when,  in  urging  the  Protestant 
churches  to  celebrate  in  1907  the  one  hundredth  anniversary 
of  the  sending  forth  of  Robert  Morrison,  it  declared  :  — 

" .  .  .  In  view  of  the  vastness  of  the  field  that  lies  open  before  us, 
and  of  the  immense  opportunities  for  good  which  China  offers  the  Chris- 
tian Church — opportunities  so  many  of  which  have  been  quite  recently 
opened  to  us  and  which  were  won  by  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  of  1900 — 
we  appeal  to  the  boards  and  committees  of  our  respective  societies,  and  in- 
dividually to  all  our  brethren  and  sisters  in  the  home  churches,  to  say  if  we 
are  unreasonable  in  asking  that  the  last  object  of  the  Three  Years' 
Enterprise  be  to  double  the  number  of  missionaries  now  working  in 
China." 

The  time  has  come  to  "  attempt  great  things  for  God,  ex- 
pect great  things  from  God."  When  in  1806,  those  five 
students  in  Williamstown,  Massachusetts,  held  that  immortal 
conference  in  the  lee  of  a  haystack,  talked  of  the  mighty  task  of 
world  evangelization  and  wondered  whether  it  could  be  ac- 
complished, it  was  given  to  Samuel  J.  Mills  to  cry  out :  "  We 
can  if  we  will  !  "  And  the  little  company  took  up  the  cry  and 
literally  shouted  it  to  the  heavens :  "  We  can  if  we  will !  " 
"A  growing  church  among  a  strong  people  burdened  by  a 
decadent  Empire — the  spirit  of  life  working  against  the  forces 
of  death  and  decay  in  the  one  great  Pagan  Empire  which  the 
wrecks  of  millenniums  have  left  on  the  earth — surely  there  is  a 
call  to  service  that  might  fire  the  spirit  of  the  dullest  of  us."  * 
The  obstacles  are  indeed  formidable,  but  he  who  can  look  be- 
neath  the  eddying  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  the  surface  to  the 

'  Gibson,  p.  331. 


The  Paramount  Duty  of  Christendom     369 

mighty  undercurrents  which  are  sweeping  majestically  onward 
can  exclaim  with  Gladstone  : — 

"  Time  is  on  our  side.  The  great  social  forces  which  move  onward  in 
their  might  and  majesty,  and  which  the  tumults  of  these  strifes  do  not  for 
a  moment  impede  or  disturb — those  forces  are  marshalled  in  our  support. 
And  the  banner  which  we  now  carry  in  the  fight,  though  perhaps  at  some 
moment  of  the  struggle  it  may  droop  over  our  sinking  hearts,  yet  will 
float  again  in  the  eye  of  heaven  and  will  be  borne,  perhaps  not  to  an  easy, 
but  to  a  certain  and  to  a  not  distant  victory."  ' 

In  a  famous  art  gallery,  there  is  a  famous  painting  called 
"Anno  Domini."  It  represents  an  Egyptian  temple,  from 
whose  spacious  courts  a  brilliant  procession  of  soldiers,  states- 
men, philosophers,  artists,  musicians  and  priests  is  advancing 
in  triumphal  march,  bearing  a  huge  idol,  the  challenge  and  the 
boast  of  heathenism.  Across  the  pathway  of  the  procession  is 
an  ass,  whose  bridle  is  held  by  a  reverent  looking  man  and 
Mpon  whose  back  is  a  fair  young  mother  with  her  infant  child. 
It  is  Jesus,  entering  Egypt  in  flight  from  the  wrath  of  Herod, 
and  thus  crossing  the  path  of  aggressive  heathenism.  Then 
the  clock  strikes  and  the  Christian  era  begins. 

It  is  a  noble  parable.  Its  fulfillment  has  been  long  delayed 
till  the  Child  has  become  a  Man,  crucified,  risen,  crowned. 
But  now  in  majesty  and  power,  He  stands  across  the  pathway 
of  advancing  heathenism  in  China.  There  may  be  confusion 
and  tumult  for  a  time.  The  heathen  may  rage,  "and  the 
rulers  take  counsel  together  against  the  Lord."  But  the  idol 
shall  be  broken  "  with  a  rod  of  iron,"  and  the  King  upon  his 
holy  hill  shall  have  "the  heathen  for  'his '  inheritance  and  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  for  'his'  possession." 

For  a  consummation  so  majestic  in  its  character  and  so  vital 
to  the  welfare,  not  only  of  China  but  of  the  whole  human  race 
we  may  well  make  our  own  the  organ-voiced  invocation  of 
Milton  : — 

1  Speech  on  the  Reform  Bill. 


37°  New  Forces  in  Old  China 

"  Come,  O  Thou  that  hast  the  seven  stars  in  Thy  right  hand, 
appoint  Thy  chosen  priests  according  to  their  order  and  courses 
of  old,  to  minister  before  Thee,  and  duly  to  dress  and  pour  out 
the  consecrated  oil  into  Thy  holy  and  ever  burning  lamps. 
Thou  hast  sent  out  the  spirit  of  prayer  upon  Thy  servants  over 
all  the  earth  to  this  effect,  and  stored  up  their  voices  as  the 
sound  of  many  waters  about  Thy  throne.  .  .  .  O  perfect 
and  accomplish  Thy  glorious  acts ;  for  men  may  leave  their 
works  unfinished,  but  Thou  art  a  God ;  Thy  nature  is  perfec- 
tion. .  .  ,  The  times  and  seasons  pass  along  under  Thy 
feet,  to  go  and  come  at  Thy  bidding;  and  as  Thou  didst 
dignify  our  fathers'  days  with  many  revelations,  above  all  their 
foregoing  ages  since  Thou  tookest  the  flesh,  so  Thou  canst 
vouchsafe  to  us,  though  unworthy,  as  large  a  portion  of  Thy 
Spirit  as  Thou  pleasest ;  for  who  shall  prejudice  Thy  all-gov- 
erning will?  Seeing  the  power  of  Thy  grace  is  not  passed 
away  with  the  primitive  times,  as  fond  and  faithless  men 
imagine,  but  Thy  kingdom  is  now  at  hand,  and  Thou  standing 
at  the  door,  come  forth  out  of  Thy  royal  chambers,  O  Prince 
of  all  the  kings  of  the  earth ;  put  on  the  visible  robes  of  Thy 
imperial  majesty,  take  up  that  unlimited  sceptre  which  Thy  Al- 
mighty Father  hath  bequeathed  Thee  ;  for  now  the  voice  of 
Thy  bride  calls  Thee,  and  all  creatures  sigh  to  be  renewed."  ' 

1  Milton,  "  Prose  Works." 


/    Trsaiu  Porta  <tre  underscored  tn^e^^ 


2«ii3ia..;(   D  £"t        li3^       from         E      '^'■':'- 


^/t^fe' 


'-TM.1O   s-'-'  . 


i 


Index 


Abraham,  39 
Abyssinia,  363 
Academy,  Military,  339 
Achievements  of  Chinese,  39sq. 
Africa,   16,   19,   102,  106,  107,  108, 

126,  128,  175,  314 
Agnew,  Rev.  Dr.,  B.  L.,  2S8 
Agnosticism,  73 
Agriculture,    136;    implements   of, 

129 
Alaric,  315 
Alaska,  17 

Alexander  the  Great,  16 
Allied    armies,    1900,    207sq.,  273, 

320  ch. 
Altai  Mountains,  Little,  104 
America,  19,  20,  30,  355 
American-China  Development  Co., 

134 

American  Board,  20isq.,  290,  292, 

293.  295.  296,  299,  300 
American  Christians,  28isq. 
American  manufacturers,  105,  106, 

"4,  133 
American  mobs,  43 
American    troops,    207,    327,    328, 

329 
Americans   in    China,   25,   26,   27, 

87,  88,   114,   115,   124-126,  131, 

134.  I54sq.,  182,  305,  348 
Amoy,  150,  221 
Amur,  valley  of,  153 
Anatolian  railway,  105 
Ancestral  worship,  72sq.,  138,  340 
Andrews,  Bishop,  41 
Angell,  Pres.  James  B.,  264 
Anglo  Chinese    railway    syndicate, 

132 
Anglo-Italian  syndicate,  132 
Anglo-Saxon,  35 
An-huei,  336 
Annam,  152 


"  Anno  Domini,"  painting,  369 

Anti-foreign  sentiment,  I36sq. 

An-tung,  348 

Arabia,  16,  107 

Arch,  39 

Area  of  China,  17,  36 

Armies,  Allied,  207sq.,  273,  320  ch. 

Army,    Chinese,    92sq.,    305,    306, 

316,  333,  338,  339,  345 
Arrow  War,  151 
"  As  a  Chinaman  Saw  Us,"  25 
Asia,   15,   16,   105,   106,   107,   III; 

changes  in,  Ilisq.  ;   religions  of, 

119 
Assyria,  16 

Astronomical  observatory,  325 
Astronomy,  39 
Attila,  315 
Attitude    towards    foreigners,    231, 

258-267,  270,  320  ch.,  32S,  330, 

335sq.,  341,  342,  344,  351 
Australia,  106,  107,  loS,  174 
Austria,  41,  172,  212,  316 
Awakening  of  China,  7 

Babcock,  Rev.  Dr.  Maltbie,  276 

Baby  house,  60 

Babylon,  16 

Bagnall,  Mr.  Benjamin,  201,  206 

Baillard,  General,  208 

Ballard,  Walter  J.,  106 

Bangkok,  42,  105,  107 

Banks,  40 

Baptists,  62,  63,  296-299,  300 

Barrett,  Hon.  John,  237 

Batavia,  42 

Bayard,  Hon.  Thos.  F.,  159 

Beirut,  105 

Belgians  International  Eastern  Co., 

133 
Belgium,  133,  171,  175,  212 
Bells,  39 


37^ 


372 


Index 


Benares,  32 

Benevolence,  72 

Beresford,  Lord  Charles,  306 

Bergen,  Rev.  Dr.  Paul  D.,  67, 
23isq.,  236 

Berlin  Conference,  102,  175 

Bible  translation,  220 

Bicycles,  114 

Bishop,  Mrs.  Isabella  Bird,  27 

Black  Sea,  16 

Blind  asylum,  223 

Boards,  mission,  243,  247,  249, 
28isq.,  290,  349,  358 

Boats,  23 

Bogue  forts,  149,  154 

Boma,  107 

Books  on  China,  195,  196,  224 

Boston,  20,  157 

Boughton,  Miss  Emma,  60 

Bougler,  D.  C,  7 

Boxers  and  Boxer  Uprising,  52,  59, 
60,  62,  63,  98,  131,  187,  193  ch., 
202sq.,  240,  249  ch.,  259,  261, 
265,    273Sq.,    330,   331,  339,  341, 

345.  359,  362 

Brazil,  172 

Brewer,  Hon.  David  J.,  163 
Brice,  Senator  Calvin  S.,  134 
Brinkley,  Capt.  Frank,  125,  322 
British-Chinese  corporation,  132 
British   in    China,    130,    131,    134, 

135.  140,  208 
British  Government,  234 
British  Museum,  40 
Brockman,  Mr.  F.  S.,  287,  289 
Brooke,  Rev.  Dr.  Stopfurd,  33 
Buddha,  15 
Buddhism,  29,  66,  74sq.,  25 8,  259, 

271 
Bulgaria,  21 
Burial,  138 

Burlingame,  Hon.  Anson,  155,  160 
Burma,  105,  107,  15 1 
Byron,  49 

Cables,  108,  109 
Calcutta,  103 
California,  22,  io2,  157 
Cambodia,  152 
Canada,  19 


Canals,  39,  68 

Canton,  20,  22-24,  32,41.  132,  134, 

138,   I46sq.,   152,  220,  221,  337, 

346 
Canton-Hankow  R.  R.,  134 
Cape  to  Cairo  R.  R.,  104,  106 
Cape  Town,  104 
Carts,  53-55,  84 
Cash,  Chinese,  61,  ill,  139 
Cassini  Convention,  153 
Cemeteries,  70,  74 
Chairs,  53,  54 
Chaldea,  15,  16 

Chalfant,  Rev.  Frank,  53,  59,  60 
Chalmers,  Rev.  Dr.  James,  126 
Chang  Chih-tung,  189,  195,  335 
Chang  Pei-hsi,  335 
Chao  Chu,  43 
Charity,  ^3,  34 
Chedor-laomer,  16 
Chefoo,  3,  13,  30,  48,  49,  138,  177, 

186,  187,  225-227 
Cheh-kiang,  21 
Chester,  Rev.  Dr.  S,  H.,  75 
Chieng-mai,  107 
Chih-li,    21,    196,    293,    308,    342, 

344,  348 
Children,  Chinese,  19,  23,  38,  72, 

73 
China,  107  ;  achievements,  39sq. ; 
area,  17,  36;  army,  316,  345; 
attitude  towards  foreigners,  35  sq. 
ch.,  69,  145,  147,  148,  231,  258, 
267,  270,  320,  328,  330,  335sq., 
341-344,  351;  awakening,  7; 
changes  in,  112;  character  of 
people,  25sq.  ch.,  35sq.  ch.,  47; 
civilization,  23,  25sq.  ch.,  35sq. 
ch.,  no,  112,  116,  119,  315; 
climate,  18 ;  colonies,  42,  44, 
141,  154 ch.;  conservatism,  35, 
191  ;  customs,  25sq.,  73,  85sq. ; 
defects,  27sq. ;  fertility,  136;  for- 
eign trade,  I2isq. ;  future,  305sq., 
331.  332,  333  ch.;  Government, 
28,  29,  41,  47,  48,  130-145.  333, 
338;  history,  39;  language,  8, 
25;  learning,  40;  life  in,  358; 
opening,  102;  partition,  307sq.  ; 
peculiarities,    25sq. ;    people   of, 


Index 


373 


25ch.,  38,  97,  98,  157,  228sq., 
314.  352.  353;  population, 
18-22,  36,  135,  315;  prejudices, 
317;  religion,  31,  137,  138,315  ; 
resources,  18,  315;  scenery,  22, 
80;  scholarship,  40 ;  society,  40, 
41  ;  soldiers,  92sq.,  222;  treaties 
with,  I7isq. ;  vices,  27sq.,  46 
China    Inland   Mission,    201,    239, 

300 
China  and  Japan,  309,  314 
China-Japan   War,   179,    180,   189, 

305.  350 
Chinan-fu,  45,  53,  63,  132,296,339 
«'  China's  Only  Hope,"  189,  190 
Chinese  abroad,  42,  141 
Chinese  in  the  United  States,  41, 

44,  I54sq.,  331.  343 
Ching-chou-fu,  30,  6isq.,  277,  296 
Ching-ting,  133 

Chining-chou,  47,  67,  68,  261,  343 
Chin-kiang,  132 
Chou  ping,  63 
Christendom,  duty  of,  351 
Christians,  American  and  European, 

2S6sq. 
Christians,  Chinese,  63,   116,    117, 

167,      198,     220,     222sq.,     228, 

268  ch.,   280  ch.,   294,  346,   347, 

349,  356,  361 
Christianity  in  China,  29,  30,  31, 
l67sq.,  2l9sq.,  222sq.   Part  IV., 
259,  264,  268  ch.,  287,  292,  349, 

355 
Christianity  vs.  civilization,  I26sq. 

Chung  Hui  Wang,  43 

Chung-wan-tao,  182 

Church,  Chinese,   268  ch.,  280  ch., 

294,  368 
Church,  Greek,  311,  312 
Cities   of  China,  20,   21,  47,   124, 

292,  367 
Civilization,     Chinese,    23,    25ch., 

35ch.,  no,  112,   116,   119,  315; 

Western,  26,  27,  31,  39,  40,  43, 

88,328,351,354 
Civilization  vs.  Christianity,  I26sq. 
Civil  power,  236  ch. 
Civil  War,  American,  359 
Classics,  Chinese,  25,  40 


Classics,  hall  of,  7 1 

Climate  of  China,  18,  84 

Clocks,  113 

Coal,  18,  47,  130,  132,  136 

Cochin-China,  152 

Coffee,  146 

Coffins,  25,  38,  59,  138 

Colleges,  296,  339,  340 

Colonies,  European,  145  ch.,  174  ch. 

Colonization,  Chinese,  42,  44,  141, 
154  ch. 

Colquhoun,  A.  R.,  44 

Columbia  University,  340 

Comity,  290 

Commerce,  40,  loi,  109,  117,  121, 
126,  136,  305 

Commercial  Pacific  Cable,  108,  109 

Compass,  39 

Conceit,  42 

Concessions,  348 

Concubinage,  72 

Conferences,  Kuling,  347 ;  Shang- 
hai, 295 

Confucius  and  Confucianism,  15, 
30-32,  38,  47.  65  ch.,  328,  334, 
340 

Conger,  Hon.  Edwin  H.,  207,  265, 

329 

Congo,  104,  107  ;  International  As- 
sociation of,  102 ;  State,  173 

Conservatism  of  Chinese,  35,  191 

Consuls,  154,  236,  245,  262,  263, 316 

Conveyances,  53 

Coolies,  23,  41,  50 

Cooper,  Rev.  Wm.,  202,  206 

Cooperation,  mission,  290,  294sq. 

Copyright  laws,  348 

Corbett,  Rev.  Dr.  Hunter,  225, 226 

Corruption,  official,  27,  28,  32 

Corvino,  John  de,  219 

Cost  of  living,  iiisq.,  280 

Cotton,  122 

Counties,  367 

Coup  d'etat,  338,  344,  345 

Courses,  ten  righteous,  72 

Courts,  28,  228,  234,  348 

Crickets,  23 

Cruelty,  29,  30 

Crusades,  194,  361 

Cuba,  312 


374 


Index 


Customs,    25sq.,    73,    85sq. ;    mari- 
time, 191,  317 
Czar  of  Russia,  18 

Dalai  Lama,  19 

Dalny,  131,  iSosq. 

Damascus,  105 

Danube,  16 

Darwin,  Charles,  129 

Davis,  Hon.  J.  C.  B.,  156,  238 

Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum,  223,  225 

Deceit,  28 

Decrees,  imperial,  335-338 

Defects  of  Chinese,  27sq. 

Degrees,  335sq. 

Denby,  Hon.  Charles,  264,  290 

Denmark,  171 

Dewey,  Admiral,  306 

Dickens,  Charles,  34 

Diedrich,  Admiral,  176 

Diffusion  Society,  189 

Diplomacy,     145,     i65sq.,    236  ch., 

246,  262,  348 
Discoveries  of  Chinese,  39sq. 
Dishonesty,  28 
Donkeys,  53,  84 
Drunkenness,  46 
Dutch  in  China,  146,  147,  175 
Dye-shops,  23 

East  India  Company,   102,  147, 

220 
Economic      revolution,      i  i  i  s  q., 

280  ch. 
Edicts,  imperial,  335-338 ;  reform, 

190,  191 ;  Yuan  Shih  Kai's,  343, 

344 
Education,  190,  191,  335-338,  339, 

347.  353 
Egypt,  16,  107 
Electricity,  103,  I07sq.,  114 
Elephants,  107 
Elgin,  Lord,  166 
Eliot,  George,  33 
Elterich,  Rev.  W.  O.,  48 
Embezzlers,  28 
Embroidery,  23-61 
Emperor,    72,    80,    113,    190,   197, 

198,  317.  324.  325.  326,  338,  343, 

344,  345.  365 


Emperor,  German,  318 

Empress,  Dowager,   188,  193,  324, 

338,  344,  345,  365 
England  and  the  English,   16,  17, 
21,    41,    117,    128,    I46sq.,    166, 
171,  172,  173,  174,  175,  181,  182, 

212,  239,  307,  308,309,349,351, 

355,  363;  soldiers  of,  321-324 
Essays,  examination,  190,  335sq. 
Etiquette,  Chinese,  37 
Euphrates,  16 
Europe,   17,  30,  39,  106,  107,  108, 

307,  308,  309,  318 
Europeans,    26,  87,  88,   124,    126, 

145  ch. 
"  Ever  Victorious  Army,"  222 
Examinations,     190,    212,    335sq. ; 

Grounds,  325 
Exclusion  laws,  158,  184 
Exposition,  St.  Louis,  160 
Extra-territoriality,  150,  184-186 

Face,  37,  38 

Fan-tai,  48 

Fares,  railway,  140,  141 

Faris,  Rev.  W.  W.,  81 

Farmers,  40  ;  farms,  18,  21,  46 

Favier,  Bishop,  199 

Fay  Chi  Ho,  161,  322 

Feasts,  61,  69,  81,  85sq.,  95 

Feathers,  23 

Fei-hsien,  96 

Fenn,  Rev.  Dr.  C.  H.,  28,  31 

Field,  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  M.,  247 

Firearms,  39 

Fitch,  Rev.  J.  A.,  60 

"  Five  Points,"  355 

Five-story  Pagoda,  23,  24 

Floods,  191,  192 

Flour,  122 

Foochow,  150,  182,  221 

Food,  85sq. 

Fong-king,  153 

Forbidden  City,  197 

Foreigners  in  China,  23,  26,  27, 
35sq.,  69,  97,  124-126,  142, 
145  ch.,  151,  156,  162,  i67sq., 
I75sq.,      184  ch.,     264,     320  ch., 

327,  328,351 
Formosa,  146,  312 


.jjiiuili 


riMM 


tfr^    M 


Index 


375 


Foster,   Hon.  John  W.,  102,   166, 

265 
Fowler,  Consul  John,  52,  91,  329, 

342 
France,   16,  21,  1 17,  17 1,  172,  173, 

174,    175,    180,    181,    182,    186, 

212,  236,  251,  350 
Franco-Chinese  Convention,  135 
Freight,  railway,  141 
French  in  China,  44,  134,  135,  140, 

151.    152,    153.    208,    307,    308, 

309.    334;    soldiers,    321,    323, 

324 
Fruit  in  China,  226 
Frye,  Senator,  363 
Fuel,  47 
Fukien,  21,  336 
Funerals,  74 
Fung-shuy,  75sq. 
Fusan,  105 
Future  of  China,  331,  332,  333  eh. 

Gambling,  28,  124 

Gardens,  46 

Gaselee,  General,  208 

Gelatine,  39 

Genseric,  315 

Georgia,  21 

Gerard,  M.,  350 

Germans,  40,  44,    54,  58,  60,  82, 

93.  97.   132.   139.  140,  321,  323. 

33^ >  334.  339.  34° 
Germany,    16,   41,    1 17,    118,    172, 

173.    174.    175.    176,    179.    180, 
182,    208,    212,    307,    308,    309, 

316,355 
Germany,  Emperor  of,  318 

Gibson,  Rev.  Dr.  J.  Campbell,  28, 

71,  75,  269,  270 
Gin,  cotton,  103 
Gladstone,  Wm.  E.,  369 
Gleaning,  46 
Glue,  39 
Goatskins,  123 
Golden  Rule,  184 
Goodnow,     Consul-General,     123, 

269 
Gordon,  Charles  George,  222,  306 
Gorst,  Harold  E.,  124 
Goths,  315 


Gould,  Miss  Annie  A.,  201,  206 
Government,  48,  236  ch. 
Government,  Chinese,  28,  29,  41, 

130,    145,    231,    333,   334,  338; 

Church,  300;  constitutional,  120 
Governments,  foreign,  362sq. 
Governors,  48 
Governor  of  Canton,  I47sq. 
Gracey,  Rev.  Ur.  J.  T.,  20 
Grain,  46 
Grand  Canal,  68 
Grant,  General,  41 
Graves,  Bishop,  31,  138,  1 39,  346 
Gray,  Willis  E.,  134 
Great  Bell  Temple,  39 
Great  Britain,  see  England 
Greek  Church,  169,  183,  311,  312 
Griffis,  Rev.   Dr.   William  Elliott, 

32 
Guatama,  15 
Gunpowder,  39 

Hamlin,  Rev.  Dr.  Cyrus,  364 

Hai-fong,  135 

Haight,  Hon.  H.  H.,  157 

Hainan,  22 

Hall  of  Classics,  71 

Hangchow,  132 

Hankow,  133,  134 

Harrison,  Hon.  Benjamin,  266 

Hart,  Sir    Robert,  193,   230,   243, 

316,  317,  332,  334,  354. 
Harte,  Bret,  43,  44 
Harvest,  46 
Hawaiians,  127 
Hawes,  Miss  Charlotte,  60 
Hay,    Hon.    John,    183,   188,   238, 

330 
Hayes,  Rev.  Dr.  W.  M.,  340,  353 
Haystack  prayer-meeting,  368 
Health  precautions,  90 
Heard,  Hon.  Augustin,  309,  310 
Hedin,  Sven,  18,  19,  40 
Hill,  James  J-,  109 
History  of  China,  39 
Hodge,  Dr.  C.  V.  A.,  201-211 
Holcombe,   Hon.  Chester,  43,  160, 

162,  187,  308,  314,  315 
Holland,  171 
Honan,  21,  133,  335 


37^ 


Index 


Hongkong,  22,  122,  150,  I5isq. 

Hong  merchants,  148,  149 

Horrors,  Temple  of,  74 

Hospitality,  95,  96,  98 

Hospitals,  82,  223,  265 

Hostility  to  foreigners,  3Ssq.  ch. 

House,  Rev.  Herbert  E.,  340 

House-boats,  23 

Houses,  31,  39,  47,  61,  62 

Hsiang-tan-hsien,  20 

Hsi-an-fu,  219 

Hsi-an-tai,  59 

Hsiens,  367 

Hunan,  22,  337 

Hungary,  21 

Hung-Wu,  Emperor,  40 

Huns,  315 

Hunter,  Rev.  Dr.  S.  A.,  261 

Hupeh,  21,  337 

ICHOU-FU,  132,  229,  356 
Illinois,  21,  22 
Immorality,  28,  29,  124 
Imperial  Railway,  131 
Indemnity,  59,  69,   155,   159,  211, 

212,  330,  334 
India,  28,  29,   102,   105,    107,  1 14, 

117,    119,    307,    313,   314,   361; 

Churches  in,  299 
Indiana,  21,  22 
Indus,  16 
Inns,  69-88,  95 
Intemperance,  124,  126,  128 
International  Eastern  Co.,  133 
Inventions,  112 
Inventions  of  Chinese,  39sq. 
Iron,  18,  136 
Irravvaddy,  105 
Italy,    172-174.  175,  212;  soldiers 

of,  325 

Japan,  17,  36,  loi,  105,  109,  iii, 
114,  167,  172,  173,  179,  182,  194, 
212,  307,  308,  309,  314,  337,  350; 
Churches  in,  299,  301 

Japan  Weekly  Mail,  125,  322 

Japanese,  29,  44,  1 17,  1 18,  1 19, 
305.  306,  317,  319.  320,  321, 328, 
329- 

Jenghiz  Khan,  318 


Jerusalem,  105 

Jewelry,  23 

Jews,  4isq.,  217,  218 

Johnson,  Dr.  Chas.  F.,  68,  91,  229 

Jones,  Mr.  A.  G.,  62 

Junks,  130 

Kai-ping,  130 

Kameruns,  108 

Kansas,  22 

Kan-su,  22,  66 

Kao-liang,  46 

Kaomi,  57 

Kassai,  107 

Khartoum,  104 

Kai-feng-fu,  133,  217 

Kentucky,  21,  22 

Kerosene,  113 

Kiang-si,  21,  336 

Kiang-su,  22,  336 

Kiao  chou,  53,  57,  97  ;  Bay  of,  176 

Kidd,  Benjamin,  33,  364 

Kien  Lung,  Emperor,  80 

King  of  Siam,  1 14,  1 19 

Kitchener,  Lord,  104 

Korea,  102,  105,  107,  108,  116, 
117,  119,  132,  172,  284,  312, 
313,  338;  Churches  in,  299 

Kowloon,  134,  135,  151 

Kuang  Hsii,  317 

Kuang  Hsum,  338 

Ku-chou,  82 

Ku-fu,  69sq. 

Kuling,  347,  368 

Kung  Hsiang  Hsi,  161 

Kwamouth,  107 

Kwang-si,  22 

Kwan-tung,  22,  41,  336 

Kwei-chou,  21 

Kwei  Heng,  209 

Lama,  Dalai,  19 

Lama  Temple,  29 

Lamps,  113 

Land-tax,  28 

Lane,  Rev.  Wm.,  162,  261 

Language,  Chinese,  8,  25 

Laos,  102-107,  108-II7,  284 

Lao-tse,  15 

Lassa,  19 


iKiritfiKr 


vmm^ 


Index 


377 


Laughlin,  Rev.  J.  H.,  53,  68,  261, 

343 
Laws,  336 

Lawsuits, 228  ch.,  25 1, 257,  312,349 
Learning,  40 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  365,  366 
Legations,  212,  326,  327  ;  Seige  of, 

I93sq. 
Legge,  Dr.,  71 
"  Letters    of    a    Chinese    Official," 

3lsq.,  327,  354 

Li,  57 

Liao-tung,  179 

Liberty,  Religious,  119 

Li  Hung  Chang,  41,  76,  338.  344 

Likin,  348 

Lincoln,  President,  360 

Liquor,   128 

Litters,  54 

Liu  Kan  Ji,  41 

Liu-kung,  181 

Liu  Kun  Yi,  195 

Living,  Cost  of,  iiisq. 

Livingstone,  David,  102 

Locomotives,  103,  I04sq.,  123,  133, 

136,  142 
Loess,  45 
London,  32 
London    Missionary    Society,    220, 

292,  296 
Looms,  103 
Looting,  324 
Louisiana,  22 
Louisiana      Purchase      Exposition, 

160,  161 
Lowe,  Henry  P.,  104 
Low,  Hon.  Frederick  F.,  155,  185, 

256,  257 
Lowell,  James    Russell,    120,    128, 

355 
Lowrie,  Rev.  Dr.  John,  103 

Lowrie,  Rev.  J.  Walter,  201,  203, 

208,  209,  352 

Lucas,  Rev.  Dr.  J.  J.,  285 

Lu  Han  Railway,  133 

Lumber,  123 

Luther,  Martin,  364 

Lyon,  Dr.  C.  H.,  53,  68,  343 

Macao,  134,  146,  147,  220 


Mackay,  Clarence  H.,  109 
Mackenzie,  John  Kenneth,  323 
McKinley,  President,  108,  330 
Magistrates,     27,    28,    47,    76,    77, 

95sq-.  139,  185,  193.  194,  209, 

210,  228  ch.,  306,  331,  333,  334, 

342,  343.  344 
Mahdi,  119 
Malone,  N,  Y.,  163 
Man,  dignity  of,  33,  34 
Manchuria,  8,    18,    19,  1 53,  I79sq., 

307,  314,  34S 
Manchus,  38,  314 
Mandarins,  29 
Manila,  42 

Manning,  Hon.  Daniel,  160 
Markham,  Edwin,  358 
Marriage,  72 
Martin,  Rev.   Dr.   W.  A.  P.,   168, 

169,  217,  218,  353 
Martyrs,    195,    198,   202-2II,   272- 

277.  341,  346,  361 
Mateer,  Rev.  Dr.  Calvin,  104,  244 
Matting,  123 
Mecca,  105 
Mechanics,  40 

Medical  missions,  223,  296,  347 
Mediterranean,  16 
Mei,  General,  321 
Meiji  Gakuin,  296 
Mencius,  15,  47 
Merchants,  Chinese,  29 
Mercy,  Goddess  of,  74 
Methodists,    296,    299;    missionary 

society  of,  290,  292 
Mexico,  173;  Churches  in,  299 
Michie,  Alexander,  230,  249 
Michigan,  21 
Millet,  46,  136 
Mills,  Samuel  J.,  368 
Milton,  John,  i6,  370 
Miner,  Luella,  161 
Mines,  348 
Ministers,  236,  245sq. 
Ministry,  288 
Minnesota,  22 
Mississippi   River,  19 ;  valley,  I02, 

118 
Missionaries,  68,  97,  102,  1 16,  125, 

126,   128,   156,   167,  194,  20isq., 


378 


Index 


217  ch.,  223  sq.,  228  ch.,  236  ch., 
249  ch.,  341,  343,  347,  349,  359- 
368 
Mission  work,  20isq.,  2i9sq.,  290sq., 

298,  345-347.  349.  350.  354.  370 

Missouri,  21 

Mobs,  43 

Mohammed,  15 

Mohammedans,  65,  66,  315;    Mo- 
hammedanism, 258,  259 

Mongolia,  18 

Monks,  Lama,  29 

Moore,  Bishop,  320 

Mormons,  27 

Morrill,  Miss  Mary  S.,  201,  206 

Morrison,  Rev.  Robert,  220,  368 

Moscow,  132 

Mountains,  45,  47,  61,  65sq. 

Mourning,  342,  343 

Mukden,  8,  131,  132,  348 

Mulberry  trees,  47 

Mules,  53,  55,  84 


Names,  Chinese,  8 

Nanking,  132,  221 

Nanning-fu,  139 

Napier,  Lord,  147-149 

Naples,  23 

Na  Tung,  314 

Navy,  305,  306,  316,  333 

Neal,  Dr.  James  B.,  63 

Nebraska,  21 

Negroes,  43 

Nestorians  in  China,  218,  219 

Netherlands,  212 

Nevius,  Rev.  Dr.  John  C,  226,  227 

New  England,  21-45 

New  Guinea,  126 

News,  North- China  Daily,  76 

Newspapers,  334 

New  York,  20,  22,  27 

Ngan-hwei,  22 

Nichols,  Francis,  259 

Nieh-tai,  48 

Nile,  16 

Ningpo,   146,  150,  221 

North  America,  106,  107 

North- China  Herald,  27 

Norway,  212 


Obi  River,  104 
Observatory,  Astronomical,  325 
Oceanica,  19. 

Office,  qualifications  for,  40 
Official,  letters  of  a  Chinese,  327 
Officials,  27,  28,  139,  141,  185,  193, 
194.  209,  210,  228  ch.,  306,  331, 

333.  334.  342,  343.  344 
Ohio,  21,  22 
Oil,  113,  114,  122 
"Open  Door,"  the,  188,  348 
Opium,  47,  128,  149,  151,  155,  162, 

356,  357 
Opium  War,  149,  150 
Oregon,  102,  123,  157 
Ornaments,  23 
Orthography,  Chinese,  8 
Oxus,  16 

Pagodas,  22,  23 

Palestine,  107 

Panthay  rebellion,  66 

Paoting-fu,  93,   133,  200-211,275, 

293.  346,  356 
Paper,  40 
Parents,  72sq. 

Parker,  E.  H.,  29,  41,  152, 164, 170 
Parker,  Rev.  Dr.,  332 
Parkhurst,   Rev.   Dr.    Charles    H., 

128 
Parsons,  Wm.  Barclay,  134 
Partition,  of  Africa,  175;  of  Asia, 

I74sq. ;    of  China,    307sq.,    314, 

354 
Passengers,  railway,  140 
Pastors,  Chinese,  280  ch. 
Patent  office,  348 
Patriotism,  35 
Pawnshops,  63 
Pearl  River,  see  West  River 
Peculiarities  of  Chinese,  25sq. 
Peking,  8,  105,  133,  I97sq-.  290sq, 
Peking-Hankow  R.  R.,  200,  201 
Peking,  seige  of,  345,  346 
Penang,  42 
Pennsylvania,  22 

Pentecost,  Rev.  Dr.  George  F.,  346 
People,  of  Asia,  iii  ;  of  China,  25sq. 

ch.,  47,  97,  98,  228sq.,  314,  352, 

353 


Index 


379 


Peril,  yellow,  305  ch.,  354 
Perry,  Commodore,  loi 
Persecution    of   Christians,    202sq., 

272-279 
Persia,  16,  108,  1 14,  313 
Persian  Gulf,  16 
Peru,  172 

Pescadores  Islands,  146 
Philadelphia,  32,  43,  157 
Philippine  Islands,  107,  146 
Photography,  103 
Pien-kiao,  30,  96 
Pitkin,  Rev.  Horace  T.,  201,  205, 

206 
Pittsburg,  103 
Plows,  129,  263 
Politics,  foreign,  Part  III 
Poor,  the,  30 
Pope,  37 
Poppy,  47 
Population  of   China,    18,   22,   36, 

315 
Port  Arthur,  13 1,  179,  180 

Portland,  Or.,  122 

Ports,  China's,  124,  125 

Portugal,      171,      173,     175,     212; 

Portuguese  in  China,  145-147 
Post-office,  103,  334 
Potter,  Bishop,  307 
Pottery,  39 
Powers,  European,  330,  359,  363, 

366 
Prefects,  47,  81 
Prejudices,  317,  351 
Presbyterians,   Board   of,   239,  286, 

290,  292,  293,  295,  296,  298,  300; 

Church,  288,  297,  299  ;  missions, 

48,  59,  60,  63,  81,  201,  198,  337, 

346,  352 
Press,  mission,    28,   103,  223,  296, 

337  ;  periodical,  334,  339 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary,  7 
Printing,  39 
Protestants  in  China,  20isq.,  22osq., 

222,    223,    230sq.,    236  ch.,    253, 

257,  290sq.,  366sq. 
Provinces,  19,  22,  23,  333,  334 
Prussia,  17 1 
Public  service,  28 
Pulu  Condore,  152 


Punishments,  29,  74,  185 

Race  prejudice,  158 ;  superiority,  33 

Railways,  52,  I04sq.,  1 1  isq.,  I30ch., 
196,  263 

Recantation  of  Christians,  277,  278 

Reform  Party,  189-191,  240 

Reforms,  335-338,  345 

Religions  of  Asia,  119;  of  China, 
31,  5i,65sq.  ch.,  315 

Resources  of  China,  18,  315 

Revolutions,  American,  359 ;  Chi- 
nese, 35,  333,  334,  351;  eco- 
nomic, I II  ch.,  132,  i36sq.,28och, 

Ricci,  Matteo,  219 

Rice,  46,  III 

Richthoven,  Baron  von,  18,  44 

Rites,  27 

Roads,  Chinese,  25,  39,  45,  55,  116, 

138 

Rock  Springs  massacre,  159,  187 

Roman  Catholics,  58,  69,  176,  183, 
193. 195.  199,  200,  219,  230,  250- 
257,  260,  350 

Roman  Empire,  16 

Romanization  Chinese  language,  9 

Romans,  351  ;  Empire  of,  361 

Roosevelt,  President,  109 

Ruskin,  John,  34 

Russia,  41,  42,  loi,  117,  131,  132, 
I53sq.,  169,  171,  172,  173,  174, 
179,  183,  188,  189,  212,  236, 
307,  308,  309,  311,  312,  313, 
317.  334>  365;  soldiers  of,  325 

Russia- Japan  War,  lOi,  348,  349 

Russo-Chinese  Bank,  133 

Sacrifices,  78 
Saigon,  42,  152 
Salaries,  28 

Salisbury,  Lord,  262,  266 
Sampans,  48 
San  Francisco,  157,  159 
Sayre,  James  W.,  106 
Scenery,  22,  31,  80 
Scepticism,  128 
Scholars,  40 
Scholarship,  40,  305 
Schools,    117,    190,   191,  223,  260, 
265.  295,  335-  337.  339.  347.  353 


38o 


Index 


Scidmore,  Eliza,  25 

Science,    British     Association     for 

Advancement  of,  104 
Scotland,  16;  people  of,  16 
Sectarianism,  295 
Sen  Yat  Sen,  311 
Self-support,  272,  284sq. 
Seoul,  105,  107,  132 
Seward,  Hon.  George  F.,  263 
Sewing  machines,  1 14 
Shakespeare,  Wm.,  34 
Shanghai,  42,  130,  132,  150,  221 
Shan-hai  Kwan,  131 
Shan-si,  21,  132,  196,  341 
Shantung   Province,    20,  21,  45sq. 

ch.,    52sq.   ch.,  97,   132,   I76sq., 

196,    296,    307,    336,   339,    341, 

342 
Shantung     Protestant     University, 

296,  353 
Sheffield,  Rev.  Dr.  D.  Z.,  322 
Shendza,  53,  55sq.,  84 
Shen-si,     18,   21,    132,    133,    195, 

219 
Sherman,  Hon.  John,  237 
Shimonoseki,  179 
Shops,  23 
Shunte-fu,  133 
Siam,  102,  105,  107,  113,  114,  116, 

117,  119,  313 
Siberia,  108 
Siberian    Railway,    105,    106,    131, 

153.  179 
Sick,  the,  30 

Siege    of    Peking,    193-200,    345, 

346 
Sjlk,  23,  39,47,  123 
Silver  currency,  1 11 
Simcox,  Rev.  F.  E.,  20isq.,  2II 
Si-ngan-fu,  133 
Singapore,  42 
Si-sui,  80 
Smith,    Rev.    Dr.    Arthur    H.,   38, 

229,  267,  321,  338 
Smith,    Rev.    Dr.    George    Adam, 

127 
Society,  Chinese,  40,  41 
Soldiers,  American,  306 ;  Chinese, 

40,  76,  9isq.,   222,  305sq.,   316, 

339.    345;    European,  306;   for- 


eign,   127,    186,    198,  208,  273, 

320  ch.,  328,  329 
Soudan,  119 
Soil,  45 

South  America,  106 
Soochow,  132 

Spain,  16,  146,  171,  172,  175,  212 
Spirit  Road,  70 
Spirits,  30sq.,  74sq. 
Stage  coach,  103 
Stanley,  Henry  M.,  102,  105 
Stanley  Falls,  104 
Statistics,  U.  S.  Bureau  of,  109 
Staunton,  Sir  George,  147 
Steam,  103,  no 
Steamers,  103,  104,  liisq.,  130 
Stewart,  Rev.  Dr.  James,  126,  175 
Stewart,  Senator,  41 
Storrs,  Rev.  Dr.  R.  S.,  23 
St.  Petersburg,  105 
Strong,  Rev.  Dr.  Josiah,  no 
Su,  Prince,  314 
Suffering,  29,  30 
Suicide,  26 

Summer  Palace,  197,  198,  324,  325 
Superstition,  30,  51,  74sq.,  137,  138 
Swatow,  20 
Sweden,  171,  212 
Syria,  117,  118,  361 
Sze-chuen,  22,  132 

Tacoma,  159 

Tael,  III 

Tai-an-fu,  65 

Tai-ping  Rebellion,  28,  221,  222 

Tai-shan,  65sq. 

Tai-yuen-fu,  133 

Taku,  130,  196,  212 

Ta-lien-wan,  180 

Tamerlane,  318 

Tang  Hsiao-chuan,  340 

Taoism,  15,  74sq. 

Tao-tai,  48 

Taylor,  Dr.  George  Y.,  20i-2i4sq. 

Taylor,  Rev.  J.  Hudson,  240 

Taxes,  28,  3^3,  348,  349 

Tea,  39,  86,  123;  shops,  23 

Telegraphs,  I07sq. 

Telephones,  103,  107,  1 14 

Temple,  Great  Confucian,  71 


Index 


381 


Temple  of  Heaven,  197,  198 

Temples,  39,  65sq.  ch.,  325 

Teng-tien-fu,  348 

Tennessee,  21 

Thoburn,  Bishop,  129 

Threshing,  46 

Tibet,  18 

Tieh  Liang,  314 

Tientsin,   20,   131,   132,   154,  197, 

221,  313,  323,  344,  361 
Tiles,  113 
Ting  Jung,  209 
Tobacco  factories,  23 
Toleration  clauses,  i67sq. 
Tong-king,  135,  307 
Tong-ku,  131,  196,  344 
Torture,  185 
Tourane,  152 
Trade,  40,   logsq.,   Ii7sq.,  I2lch., 

I26sq.,  142,  147,  159 
Trade-marks,  348 
Traders,  40,  42,    102,    I24sq.,  145, 

156 
Travelling  in  China,  84,91,  loi  ch. 
Treaties,   150,  151,   152,   153,  154, 

155,    156,    166,    i67sq. ;   list   of, 

I7isq.,   179,  212,  221,237,238, 

247.  348,  349 
Trees,  45 

Tribune,  New  York,  4 1 
Trolley  cars,  107 
Tsing-tau,  123,  132,  139,  176-179, 

331 
Tsung-li  Yamen,  155,  212,  254 
Tuan  Fang,  195 
Tungchou,   49sq.,    177,  321,    322, 

340 
Turkestan,  Chinese,  18 
Turkey,  175 
Type,  39 

Uganda,  104 

United  States,  17,  19,  21,  106,  117, 
118,  154  ch.,  171,  172,  173,  175, 
182,  188,  207,  208,  211,  212,  234, 

235.    307.    308,    329-331.    348- 
350,362;  trade  of,  I22sq.,  I54sq., 

159 
Universities,  190,  335,  353 
Ussuri,  153 


Vandals,  315 
Van  Schoick,  Dr.,  58 
Verne,  Jules,  lob 
Vices,  27sq.,  I24sq.,  142 
Victoria  Falls,  104 
Victoria,  Queen,  108 
Villages,  20,  21 
Villagers,  allied,  93 
Virginia,  21 
Vladivostok,  131,  179 

Wade,  Hon.  Francis,  239,  240, 

256 
Wade,  Hon,  Thomas  F.,  170 
Wai-wu  Pu,  213,  314 
Walls,  210 
Wang,  Captain,  340 
War  with  Japan,  179,  180,  189 
Ward,  Frederick  T.,  222 
Watchman,  90 
Wei-hai  Wei,  152,  181 
Wei-hsien,    59sq.,    113,    123,    132, 

296,  345 
Weng  Chan  Kwei,  209 
Wen  Hsiang,  170,  185,  239,  257 
Wen  River,  67 

West  River,  22,  23,  135,  152,  307 
West  Virginia,  21 
Wheat,  46,  III,  136 
Wheelbarrows,  25,  53,  54 
Wherry,  Rev.  Dr.  John,  39 
Whiskey,  46,  86 
Whitman,  Marcus,  102 
Widows,  19 
Wiju,  105,  132 
William  IV,  108 
Williams,  Dr.  S.  Wells,  39,  75,  150, 

167,  168 
Williamstown,  Mass.,  368 
Wilson,  Gen.  James  H.,  266 
Winnowing,  46 
Winter  palace,  197,  198 
Wireless  telegraphy,  109 
Wisconsin,  21 
Women,  26,  27,  46,  62 
Women  missionaries,  262 
Wong  Kai  Kah,  159 
Wool,  123 
Working-man,  1 18 
Worship,  ancestral,  72sq.,  340 


382 


Index 


Wright,  Hon.  Carroll  D.,  282  Yenisei  River,  104 

Wu-sung,  122,  130,  182  Yo-chou,  182 

Wu  Tiiig-fang,   43,   73,    130,  266,       Yuan  Shih  Kai,  gisq.,  97, 195,  196, 

329,  330  261,    267,    307,    314,   338-345, 

365 

Xavier,  Francis,  102,  219  Yueh-Kou,  82,  83 

Yuen  Yen  Tai,  340 

Yale  University,  43  Yu  Hsien,  341 

Yalu  River,  105,  348  Yung-loh,  Emperor,  40 

Yamen,  95,  96  Yun-nan,  21,  66,  135,  152 
Yang-tze  River,  133,  135,  307 

Yellow  peril,  305  eh.,  354  Zagros  Mountains,  16 

Yellow  River,  63,  76,  191  Zoroaster,  15 

Yen,  76  Zululand,  32 
Yen-chou-fu,  69 


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